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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

#92
For all of those people saying that FB is dead, perhaps their core product is in decline among younger users, but that does not seem to be true for Instagram or Whatsapp. Those acquisitions seem to extend FB's fingers to the demographics that their core product is losing.

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

#93
post #78

How many users are just hanging on? I use FB very occasionally for some events, but mostly never login. I get nagging notifications about how much I'm missing, but it doesn't feel like much. I suspect there is a growing population of people with similar usage patterns. Are we really monthly active users?

They release some information in their earnings report about user activity. [0] Daily Active Users = 1.40 Billion. Monthly Active Users = 2.13 Billion. It's hard to extract too many statistics out of this. It's just fair to say that if someone used Facebook at all in the last 30 days, they probably (>50% chance) used Facebook today. [0] https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/...

Considering they don't release metrics such as average/median time spent, there is no way to know what degree those users are actually engaging vs simply clicking on some spammy push notification at some point in the last month (which get increasingly spammy the longer you haven't been engaged).

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

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tone of your comment aside... Is it so hard for you to believe that a group of corporate leaders can think that doing something (a strategy) can serve their user, their purpose, and their bottom line all at the same time, equally? It's probably one of the most prevalent self delusions in the corporate world... In fact, I'd argue that the smarter the group of leaders think they are, the more likely they are to fal…

My point wasn't about whether the were doing it (I'm sure they were) but about whether they were confused about it.

Huh? Whether they were doing what?

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

#95
post #45

I deleted FB a few years ago, I’m surprised how bad it’s gotten. I’m not surprised that more people are either just not logging in anymore or just occasionally.

I deleted my FB a few years ago too. I ended up getting back on and only connecting with close family that live out of state. I don't follow any brands or watch any corporate content either. I still find value in it because I can see the cool pictures my sister posts and quickly send out family updates. I'd never connect with casual friends from college or co-workers though.

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

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point wasn't about whether the were doing it (I'm sure they were) but about whether they were confused about it.

Huh? Whether they were doing what?

Optimising for revenue at the expense of everything else. They knew what they were doing, they just didn't care.

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

#97
post #89
post #75

FB seems to be on its deathbed. It's obvious that it's completely lost on young users (18-25), and even young adults (25-35) are just about done with it. Serious question: is now the time to disrupt? What would the "next" MySpace/FB look like? Ignoring techie "features" like decentralization, what do you think users actually care about?

Whatsapp, Instagram and Snapchat are already far in the process of obsoleting Facebook and scooping up leaving and young users. 2 of those 3 are now owned by Facebook

[deleted]

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

#98
post #61

I HAD to sign up for an account - don't ask why. After about 1 hour of usage trying to do what I had to get done, it REQUIRED a phone number for security purposes. Seconds after I entered the phone number (for security purposes) I was blasted by about 400 recommended connections including some ex-girlfriends that I'm sure my wife would LOVE me to be friends with. Go facebook. I'm guessing those people got notified th…

The other side probably got notified too. I remember seeing a peculiar name on FB's "you might know..." list, I wondered where I saw that name before. I looked in my mail inbox, and it's a guy who sold me something on eBay a few years ago. I never gave Facebook access to my mail account, but what I'm pretty sure happened is that guy did just that. FB saw that we exchanged some emails, and said (probably to both parties): "Hey, be FB-friends with this person!".

I wonder what the security implications are. I think a security researcher added a lot of phone numbers into his phone and let Facebook read it, and Facebook responded with names and faces of those numbers.

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

#99
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…

And the thing is that social networks are not nearly as sticky as they seem.

As https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/metcalfes-law-i... makes clear, multiple lines of evidence suggests that the total possible value out of a social network scales like O(n log(n)). (Yes, I am biased as one of the authors. But what shocked me was how many independent lines of argument the other authors came up with for the same conclusion!) As the experience of Facebook goes down, it takes less and less work for a competitor to make up the O(log(n)) first mover advantage.

I would therefore not bet on Facebook lasting over the long haul...

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

#100
post #10

I'm 34 and Facebook lost me as well. I can't remove my account as I need to use as a developer, but I unfollowed everyone and my newsfeed is empty. It's a bliss. Funny thing is, it's all Facebook's fault. Back in the days, the service was simply brilliant to see what's going on at your friends, at home and abroad. But when Facebook introduced the algorithmic newsfeed, the usefulness ended. I could no longer see all t…

Similar experience, I think my problem with the algorithm is similar to slowing down to look at the car wreck on the side of the road. I have a few a"friends" that post horrible stuff. Conspiracy theories, rants, and other posts that are just symptoms of poor mental health. At first I stopped to read these in HORROR and disgust, because they stood out so much from the rest of my feed. Facebook takes that as a signal…

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