The Facebook Era is Over

[Page]

In the past 24 hours, the New York Times reported on a new layer of Facebook’s role in our current climate of toxicity. It’s a layer that’s shocking even to those of us who are long time Facebook watchers and occasional fans.

There’s something different about these latest revelations.

While the chattering class of Silicon Valley will brush this story aside as another PR snafu and talk about Facebook’s powerful and monopolistic network effects–where the value of the network grows with each new user who joins–that analysis alone misses the fundamental shifts happening under our feet.

The same viral loop that catapulted Facebook into every corner of Earth is now slowly turning the other way towards its unwinding.

To be sure, Facebook isn’t going away tomorrow. But in the same way we grudgingly use Microsoft Word with a complete absence of joy, the days of Facebook’s growth and inevitability are behind it.

Link to article on LinkedIn

Thoughts?

 

[Gayoz]

FB is not going anywhere anytime soon, now that when even every grandma is using it. Kids don't use facebook now but they will eventually will when the only point of contact for so many is to message on facebook.

 

[Bryn]

Kids don't use facebook now but they will eventually will when the only point of contact for so many is to message on facebook.

Not necessarily. There's a thing called Messenger which is said to be more popular these days, and you can even use it without the need of a Facebook account.

 

[Jordan]

Kids don't use facebook now but they will eventually will when the only point of contact for so many is to message on facebook.

Not necessarily. There's a thing called Messenger which is said to be more popular these days, and you can even use it without the need of a Facebook account.

Not only this, less and less teenagers are signing up for Facebook, and those who do are using it less.
The ones who use Facebook the most are the ones who registered before 2010.
They say Facebook is getting a lot of older people now. Not really true. Just the people who used it 10 years ago, are now 10 years older 😛

Kids today prefer snapchat over facebook messenger.

 

[Heatman]

Mark Zuckerberg is making millions of dollars on daily basis through Facebook, so it's in fact impossible to close it down.

A lot of online business is anchored on Facebook, so it's still very important to the society.

 

[Alexandoy]

The number of Facebook users continue to grow each day and I think it cannot be stopped by any issue unless it is between life and death like users of Facebook are susceptible to a kind of disease. With the hacking early this year that millions of Facebook accounts were compromised, that issue seemed to have no effect on the users of Facebook. Whether we admit it or not Facebook is here to stay for now.

 

[Azareal]

It doesn't matter. Facebook buys out anyone who could oppose them.
Instagram, Whatsapp, etc.

Facebook proper hasn't really been "hip" so to speak for about five years.
Even though the media screams about the mothership, they completely forget about their other assets who are comparatively squeaky clean PR-wise.

Facebook is not a company or website. It is an empire.

Even if someone new rises up, they'll just get a big check and become part of the Zuckerberg Family. Some people think that decentralised social platforms might be able to do something to change the trends, but they are very lacking.

 

[Bryn]

Mark Zuckerberg is making millions of dollars on daily basis through Facebook, so it's in fact impossible to close it down.

But he had been losing his money from all the scandals going on, especially with Cambridge Analytica.

 

[Jason76]

From what it seems like, Reddit and Instagram are taking over - and maybe others.

 

[Page]

Instagram

Yeah they have gone high as this year.. even myself using it allot more

 

[killamch89]

Facebook is going nowhere - not in the near future at least. I myself only use Facebook for business and nothing else as I find the constant drama on the platform distasteful.

 

[Gayoz]

Kids don't use facebook now but they will eventually will when the only point of contact for so many is to message on facebook.

Not necessarily. There's a thing called Messenger which is said to be more popular these days, and you can even use it without the need of a Facebook account.

Not only this, less and less teenagers are signing up for Facebook, and those who do are using it less.
The ones who use Facebook the most are the ones who registered before 2010.
They say Facebook is getting a lot of older people now. Not really true. Just the people who used it 10 years ago, are now 10 years older 😛

Kids today prefer snapchat over facebook messenger.

Yes, You are right!

 

[Jason76]

I don't know if it's really drama on there. It just seems like a bunch of drunk or high people posting funny stuff - often politically biased.

 

[VirusZero]

The golden age of growth for facebook is over for sure. It'd be hard to grow as fast now as it did years ago. But facebook won't likely disappear any time soon. Too many people still use it. Though it could very easily start alienating users if they started pushing more ads, requiring more info (like a credit card number) to join/be a member, get embroiled in a few more scandals, etc... But even then it's unlikely that these actions would kill facebook outright. People would still likely use it. It'd take facebook doing some colossally stupid things (like the aforementioned, plus some heavy expenditures) to really kill it.

Though maybe reddit or instagram get more usage now than they used to, but that really doesn't mean much. It's not a zero-sum situation. Just because you use reddit doesn't mean you also can't use facebook. About the only real limitation is that there is only so much time in a day and you have to decide how you want to use it. So it's entirely possible, or likely, that people using reddit are also on facebook.

Though just because it's so big doesn't mean that it could never fail. Large companies can easily fail. Nothing is ever so large as to be immune to failure. All it takes is a few bad decisions and that can cripple a company.
Capcom was on the verge of failing a few years ago due to the fact they ignored their fans, made extremely high budget games and then blamed fans for those games not selling well enough to turn a profit. If they had made even 1 or 2 more games like that they could have completely bankrupted themselves and been forced to shut down. Thankfully in Capcom's case they smartened up and have turned things around.

 

[Heatman]

Mark Zuckerberg is making millions of dollars on daily basis through Facebook, so it's in fact impossible to close it down.

But he had been losing his money from all the scandals going on, especially with Cambridge Analytica.

That's true about the issue of Cambridge Analytica with selling of users data for political purposes but the money lost as a result of this isn't anywhere near the profit he is making so far.

 

[killamch89]

Mark Zuckerberg is making millions of dollars on daily basis through Facebook, so it's in fact impossible to close it down.

But he had been losing his money from all the scandals going on, especially with Cambridge Analytica.

That's true about the issue of Cambridge Analytica with selling of users data for political purposes but the money lost as a result of this isn't anywhere near the profit he is making so far.

You have a valid point.

 

[Heatman]

Mark Zuckerberg is making millions of dollars on daily basis through Facebook, so it's in fact impossible to close it down.

But he had been losing his money from all the scandals going on, especially with Cambridge Analytica.

That's true about the issue of Cambridge Analytica with selling of users data for political purposes but the money lost as a result of this isn't anywhere near the profit he is making so far.

You have a valid point.

Exactly my point. Even with the series of crisis facing the social media lately especially cases of massive hacks of users accounts, it's still wouldn't be enough to take the site down.

 

[killamch89]

Mark Zuckerberg is making millions of dollars on daily basis through Facebook, so it's in fact impossible to close it down.

But he had been losing his money from all the scandals going on, especially with Cambridge Analytica.

That's true about the issue of Cambridge Analytica with selling of users data for political purposes but the money lost as a result of this isn't anywhere near the profit he is making so far.

You have a valid point.

Exactly my point. Even with the series of crisis facing the social media lately especially cases of massive hacks of users accounts, it's still wouldn't be enough to take the site down.

If it continues for a sustained period of time - say the next 1 year they may start laying off staff and start re-structuring but it's going to take a lot more than that get them to shut up shop.

 

[Heatman]

Mark Zuckerberg is making millions of dollars on daily basis through Facebook, so it's in fact impossible to close it down.

But he had been losing his money from all the scandals going on, especially with Cambridge Analytica.

That's true about the issue of Cambridge Analytica with selling of users data for political purposes but the money lost as a result of this isn't anywhere near the profit he is making so far.

You have a valid point.

Exactly my point. Even with the series of crisis facing the social media lately especially cases of massive hacks of users accounts, it's still wouldn't be enough to take the site down.

If it continues for a sustained period of time - say the next 1 year they may start laying off staff and start re-structuring but it's going to take a lot more than that get them to shut up shop.

Well, before it gets to that point, I'm absolutely sure that Mark Zuckerberg would set up a crisis management team that would help avert the problem.

 

[Eussbig]

FB owns Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It's not going away anytime soon.