Ask HN: If Meta dies will React follow?

> Given the JS ecosystem cycle, React will be replaced by something better much sooner.

The JS ecosystem cycle has slowed way down. React is 9 years old now. Vue is 8 years old. Svelte, the new kid on the block, is 5 years old.

If React is halfway dead, and I doubt that given how much $$ is being invested in new React apps today, then that is still another 9 years of React.

I do agree that Meta will be around for longer than 9 years though! :)

The other thing people don't realize is that React Native is huge. It has been ported all over the place, the basic idea of "universal UI primitives that you write native backings for" is a pretty good one, and JSX is a really nice templating language.

I'm not a fan of quite a few things about React, but its design is solid enough that it isn't going anywhere.

> A slow death on the order of 10-20 years may happen

A sibling comment even said,

> Meta's death (if it happened), will be a slow and a long one. Like Oracle or IBM (although IBM is not completely dead).

I think death could happen a lot sooner. Rapidly, even.

Meta is not B2B, but B2C. They won't have ten year contracts, legacy workloads that they can raise costs on, or new businesses to schmooze over a game of golfing with the execs.

Social is fickle. MySpace and Digg died in an afternoon. All of the centuries of dead and forgotten stored content isn't keeping people there. It's connections. And those can come and go easily. Just look at Snapchat and TikTok.

Meta employee compensation is going to begin decreasing both in terms of salary and stock equity. They won't be able to retain good talent, so initiatives will die. Meta is also in a narrative death spiral, and this will eat away at employee morale.

New startups will see blood in the water. They'll come after the Baby Boomers. They'll come after the photographers. Facebook won't have capital to fight battles from every angle.

They have a massive amount of infrastructure to maintain. This will become a giant thorn if they lose employees. How will they weigh keeping the lights on, finishing ongoing migrations, etc. vs fighting new battles to stay alive?

We now realize how little moat they actually have. Facebook really needed a device. They tried to build a handset and failed. Oculus is too little too late.

edit: Facebook ads will cost a lot less as advertisers demand more favorable rates and see diminishing value, perhaps even abandoning the platform for their ad spend.

I'm sure that's what MySpace investors thought.

If Meta dies the economy will follow. Meta isnt going anywhere. If Oracle is employees massive amount of people Meta will for a long time to come. Look past one quarters earning reports.

Facebook is already unfashionable.