Better real time engagement. Think of it like your own personal news ticker or curated radio station with updates. I used it to get updates from sporting events when I didn’t necessarily have access to a radio/tv and couldn’t watch/ listen to a game, etc. because I was indisposed, at a function, movie, etc.I had a whole host of journalists, personalities, and people that would basically/ practically give me play by play and keep me informed of what was going on. It was actually truly great. Twitter isn’t even close to what it once was.

Edit: wanted to add that you could think of Facebook as the modern rolodex at the time, still actually, while Twitter is/was more suitable for more real time engagement. Reddit sort of became the substitute for that up until they disastrously decided to shut down 3rd party apps. Now the site/subreddits are getting garbage content and it’s a ghost town. Most subreddits I was on are barely getting anything orany posts anymore. Lemmy is definitely filling the void. I mean, at least it has usable apps.

It used to be great for gaming news updates. Back when the feed would just be who the user chose to follow. Sure, the big stuff would make it to Facebook eventually but I felt it was a better product for breaking news.