Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by starpilot » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #157

padobson wrote: post #38

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 number of folks here and on reddit and even back to Slashdot who had and continue to have negative reactions to incredibly popular things shows that it's really hard for techies to predict what will become a success. I don't think we're irrelevant or out of touch, I just think we really are in a market all our own. Look at the overwhelmingly negative response to the iPod, which then went on to destroy CD players…

And all the HN hate for the MacBook Pro touch bar and keyboard, while it sells incredibly well.

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

#202

Post by ZenoArrow » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #55

ZenoArrow wrote: post #5

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.

> "and is happening!) to Instagram"

That's not what the article suggests. If you have some stats to suggest the volume of Instagram users is already on the decline, by all means post it.

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

#203

Post by askafriend » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

xj9 wrote: post #105

askafriend wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A viable alternative requires your friends and family to be on it. So there is no viable alternative for most people - decentralized or otherwise.

invite them to join then? mastodon has some great apps. if you have the skills you could even set up an instance or two for your friends/family to meet up on. it won't work for 100% of the people you know, but it isn't that difficult to get a few friends to try a new app/service. even if you can't/don't know how to set up an instance, there are hundreds of public servers that you can join. honestly, the only excuse i…

> invite them to join then?

I'm sorry but I'm not going to spend my personal time convincing hundreds of my contacts to move over to a random service called Mastodon. I've got better things to do with my life. I'm going to use Facebook as a tool and move on - as I'm sure the less vocal majority are doing.

There is a philosophical viewpoint and a practical one. I choose the practical one.

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

#204

Post by mrighele » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 10:00 PM UTC

f055 wrote: 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…

> But when Facebook introduced the algorithmic newsfeed, the usefulness ended.

What I find funny is that probably according to FB your "engagement" increased with that change. Beforehand, you would check the feed, and then hit something that you already saw and then stop: you saw everything that there was to see. After the change instead, you found yourself seeing again and again the same content, and you would keep scrolling that feed hoping to see something new.

Instead of 5 minutes it takes you 10 (and you still are not sure you saw everything you wanted), you're spending double time on FB, big win ! Who cares if the "productivity" (as in total enjoyment / time spent) decreased , more time = more ads = more money.

Lather, rinse, repeat, until the garbage is so much that one stop using it and the "engagement" drops completely.

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

#205

Post by nothrabannosir » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 10:02 PM UTC

btown wrote: post #160

zem wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't comment on a friend's public post without it being broadcast to my timeline! this is the one dark feature that has most affected any good feelings I might have had towards facebook and my usage thereof

A “broadcast this comment?” prompt after successfully submitting a comment, even a toggle that’s default-on, would solve this elegantly IMO. I have no idea why they don’t do it. Facebook was once great at understanding that people don’t want to draw outside attention to some things that they technically do in public. They seem to have ceded that ground to Snapchat entirely, which is a painful sentence to type.

> I have no idea why they don’t do it.

Not to beat this hackneyed drum to death, but: it’s because you’re not the consumer—you’re the product. They have armies of data scientists optimising their holy interaction metrics to death. They are incentivised to wage a holy war for your eyeballs, and wage a war they will. Every last base point is priceless at their scale.

Every single pixel, every possible user story, everything down to the very last detail is optimised for user interaction.

If you ever find yourself wondering why they missed something: they didn’t. It’s intentional.

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

#206

Post by jonbarker » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

Basically all social networks with real names are an extension of one's professional brand. This is not good for facebook in its efforts to attract kids because 1) what parent wants to sign their kid up for a permanent professional brand and 2) what kid is thinking about their professional brand anyway?

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

#207

Post by ZenoArrow » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

Yhippa wrote: post #155

jasode wrote: 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…

Facebook is no longer the best way for me to share content with people I care about. For me that's WhatsApp, Google Photos, and MMS.

If you're using WhatsApp instead of Facebook, Facebook the company doesn't care, it's still money in the bank to them (selling advertisers a detailed profile of who their users are for targeted ads). The whole idea behind buying Instagram and Whatsapp would've been to stay relevant when the inevitable decline in their flagship product kicked in. Looks like their plan is working.

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

#208

Post by johnpowell » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 10:04 PM UTC

netsharc wrote: post #98

rhacker wrote: 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 parti…

This happened to me too. There was a guy on Reddit looking for help setting up Plex on a dedicated server. I run a small chat room and helped him out in there.

But we did exchange a few emails. I use fastmail and he uses gmail. A few days later he pops in the people you might know thing. At the time I did not have a cell phone so I am assuming he gave the app access to his contacts or something.

I think it is safe to say Facebook has a pretty detailed profile about you even if you never made an account.

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

#209

Post by mysterypie » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 10:12 PM UTC

beamatronic wrote: post #60

btown wrote: 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,…

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).

> a "no current coworkers" policy

So if someone asks, Can you add me on FB? Would you reply?: No, I have a no current coworkers policy. Is there a way to do this without hurting people's feelings?

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

#210

Post by fphhotchips » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 10:16 PM UTC

Retra wrote: post #195

adrianmsmith wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but if your friends also needed to pay $1 then many of them wouldn't, and then the service still wouldn't be useful to you (despite paying $1).

It could be an unofficial share, like Netflix subscriptions. "Somebody" needs to pay, but if you know someone who has, then you can use the service fairly easily.

Why not just have a freemium model like a Facebook Blue or something? I pay you money, I get no ads and premium control of my feed. I don't pay you money, I get what I'm given.