In 2012, a photography student named Katie decided to sign into a Chatroulette-style site called Omegle that matched her with a random user named Edison. With their shared love of photography and passion for Vampire Weekend (it was 2012) the two clicked. Eight months later, they moved in together.

This was the ideal scenario Omegle founder Leif K-Brooks had envisioned. Clearly he was onto something. By 2023, the platform had 73 million visitors a month and generated an estimated $200 million in revenue per year. But the entire functionality of the site rested on a single premise: anonymity. And, amid a shifting culture surrounding this principle, so core to the internet, Omegle would stumble and fall.

In 2022, a minor successfully sued the company after meeting a predator on the platform who later abused her. The pedophile, Ryan Fordyce, was convicted, but a landmark court decision also allowed Omegle to be held liable for “user anonymity and the absence of age restrictions.” Omegle, which was dissolved last November, attributed its demise to the case.

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