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Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

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Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#51
Never signed up on Facebook. I always treated that offering as a convoluted waste of time. Personal preferences aside, I always wondered what happens to Facebook posts 1 month after publishing. They usually look like something (at Facebook?) scavenges pictures, photos and makes them 404. It moves so fast and breaks so many things, literally.

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#52
post #48
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the erosion of the idea that it is default-safe to share your social experiences with your group of "friends." Adoption by colleagues and family shifts the tone considerably towards LinkedIn, where one's professional image is paramount - and all that does is make the platform more stressful to use. Facebook does provide tools to segment one's friends into groups to whom content can be privately posted,…

I know this is one tiny use case, but it's one that's bothered me for some time. I can't change my profile picture without it becoming a huge news story for family and "friends" to comment on. I change a little picture of me, remove the event from my timeline, and I still get hokey comments or messages reminding me how bored and lonely everyone I know must be. I severely miss when it was just a place to chat up a cut…

I can’t remember if this still works, but you used to be able to set the privacy of your profile photo to “only me”, which would prevent it from appearing in friends’ news feeds. After a few days or so you could safely set the privacy back to friends or public and be reasonably assured it wouldn’t be seen as its own post.

It is completely silly that you have to jump through these hoops, though, assuming it’s even still an option.

Btw, hiding something from your timeline has absolutely no effect on whether it appears in friends’ feeds or not. It’s purely about whether people can see if it they go to your timeline. Which is pretty unintuitive and anti-user: if I don’t want something in my timeline, why would I want it showing up in people’s news feeds?

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#53
post #18

I'm in my 30s and I use FB a lot to keep up with my friends. However, I have notice that my younger cousins in their 20s never post. So... where do young folks go these days? Instagram? Twitter? Snapchat? I guess I need to talk to my cousins more and find out.

Instagram and Snapchat, for the teens and 20s I know.

My market research (teenage kids) indicates that Instagram is their platform of choice.

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#54
I signed up for Facebook recently after deleting my account 9 years ago. I was banned within 30 minutes after updating my work history and a profile photo. Submitted an appeal with my drivers license and passport. Unbanned in a couple hours. Kept building my profile over the next couple days and was banned 3 more times. Submitted appeals each time with all the requested information. Nothing malicious, political, or sexual posted, just the average guy setting up a Facebook account. Been banned for over a month now, finally just gave up. They never emailed me other than the initial welcome to Facebook email. Just had to try my login every couple hours to see if I was still banned.

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#55

Article claims Facebook is losing market share to Instagram (with individuals under 25). With that in mind, doesn't seem accurate to state they're losing users.

The same will happen (and is happening!) to Instagram. They've recently changed Instagram to non-chronological "curated" feeds, and added a bunch of ads into the mix. What used to be a very pleasant social network has become way less enjoyable in recent months.

They also just (after years of resisting) opened up the posting API to some partners.

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#57
post #3

Anybody know a worthwhile open source social network alternative?

I think a better alternative should be, a de-centralized distributed open source social network.

Like Mastodon? https://mastodon.social/about

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#58
It is surprising that most folks reading HN are in some kind of bubble. I see people here commenting how they have never used facebook since last X years and they are fearful about facebook and privacy.

Are you kidding me? FB has 2.2Billion Monthly active users.

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#59

Whenever I see a post like this on HN, I see the inevitable "the product sucks" posts in the comments. As an engineer and social media user, I completely agree, but it doesn't seem to be bearing out in the marketplace. Facebook continues to grow[0] (if more slowly). So what is the HN audience to Facebook? Our we taste makers? A demographic ahead of the product curve, predictive of Facebook's imminent decline? Or are…

the growth they present is not telling the whole truth. So called MAU and DAU can be for example a person like me who hasnt been on fb.com for 2 months, yet when I visit newspapers and scroll to bottom I see facebook comments section with my profile picture on. Meaning FB will now count me as an DAU/MAU.

Look beyond those selective statistics, FB.com is dead.

Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year

#60
post #36
post #15

Facebook suffered from 2 waves of "Eternal September" [0]: wave 1: the addition of everybody outside your immediate friends and close family. You get the goofy uncle, the distant high school acquaintances, and all the work acquaintances from every previous job that submitted a "friend request" that you didn't reject out of politeness. The newsfeed gets polluted by nonsense such as forwarded memes, politics, and other…

Not to mention the erosion of the idea that it is default-safe to share your social experiences with your group of "friends." Adoption by colleagues and family shifts the tone considerably towards LinkedIn, where one's professional image is paramount - and all that does is make the platform more stressful to use. Facebook does provide tools to segment one's friends into groups to whom content can be privately posted,…

Hmm. Most folks I know address the colleague issue with a "no current coworkers" policy.

(Not to imply you should immediately add newly-former coworkers).

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