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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

#351

Post by DerfNet »

colanderman wrote: post #44
alex_young wrote: post #4

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?

I have three use cases that keep me there: 1) I'm in a couple specific regional groups that AFAIK have no non-Facebook counterpart (though they easily could). I think Facebook does groups poorly, but they serve the "non-technical community space" use case much better than any other popular offering that I know of. 2) It's the easiest way for me to blast low-key questions/updates/etc. to most of my friends and family.…

>1) I'm in a couple specific regional groups that AFAIK have no non-Facebook counterpart (though they easily could). I think Facebook does groups poorly, but they serve the "non-technical community space" use case much better than any other popular offering that I know of.

These used to be called "forums" and were very popular until Facebook invented groups and murdered them all.

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

#352

Post by graeme »

ryandrake wrote: post #273
tgb wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. I don't care if they stumble across it but I never want to broadcast a comment, at least not to people who wouldn't already have seen the post. The worst is when public groups use Facebook as the only way to contact them - I once posted a question about leaving a coat at an event and then got a message from a friend suggesting that I hadn't invited him to the event (it wasn't the kind of thing he thought…

Wouldn't it make more sense to simply assume that anything one posts to the Internet could potentially be broadcast to everyone they know and published on the front page of the New York Times? I don't understand why people think the content they post to a website will be kept private, especially if not keeping it private maximizes shareholder value.

Different threat model. Your friend isn't the NSA, and would be thwarted if it weren't broadcast.

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

#353

Post by marcodave »

fortylove wrote: post #299
traek wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense do you think a driver’s license is a “treasure trove of personal information”? Especially information which FB does not already have from other sources?

Proving to advertisers that the targets are real humans must have some value. I imagine fb somewhere shares a stat that's basically "n% of users personal details are verified with a valid ID!". IE, "dear advertisers, your ads are targeting real humans. We promise."

cynical, scary, hence probably true

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

#354

Post by jkestner »

fphhotchips wrote: post #210
Retra wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

At least in the US, that amount would be $7/month - what Facebook makes per user now.

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

#355

Post by marcodave »

oflannabhra wrote: post #347

I have a theory: Facebook's biggest problem is that it gives people what they want, but what people want is not what makes them happy. Algorithmic recommendations are tailored to capture people for as long as possible, but the short-sightedness of "engagement" erodes the long-term benefit for the user. I think this applies to YouTube as well, or other algorithmically generated "feeds".

> Facebook [...] gives people what they want, but what people want is not what makes them happy

I have a feeling that Facebook is following the same decline of generalistic TV, which, similarly to Facebook - contains mostly ads and crappy/shocking/debatable content - its userbase is becoming more and more elderly - teens start to snob it and move on to the next cool thing - people get bored of it and decide not to bother with it anymore

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

#356

Post by [deleted] »

whataretensors wrote: post #287
rangersanger wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means I would like "liking" a post of grumpy cat to use as much energy as a Toyota Carola driving from Miami to Washington DC. Luckily, actually posting grumpy cat photos causes brownouts, so there are none to like.

Hyperbole. Modern blockchains do not use much energy. This is an obvious great idea waiting for implementation.

[deleted]

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

#357

Post by marcodave »

jzl wrote: post #259
netsharc wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You think that's bad? This was a really good expose on the darker side of Facebook's "People You May Know" feature: https://gizmodo.com/how-facebook-outs-sex-workers-1818861596

As unnerving as it might seem, let's not forget that Facebook has a HUGE database of faces and relationship with those faces. Even though is not active, Facebook AI could easily auto-tag me in every photo ever posted by anyone, friend or foe. Therefore, facebook could also make a connection between your "real me" and your "other secret me", purely on a set of photos, tags and profile pictures

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

#359

Post by colanderman »

DerfNet wrote: post #351
colanderman wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have three use cases that keep me there: 1) I'm in a couple specific regional groups that AFAIK have no non-Facebook counterpart (though they easily could). I think Facebook does groups poorly, but they serve the "non-technical community space" use case much better than any other popular offering that I know of. 2) It's the easiest way for me to blast low-key questions/updates/etc. to most of my friends and family.…

>1) I'm in a couple specific regional groups that AFAIK have no non-Facebook counterpart (though they easily could). I think Facebook does groups poorly, but they serve the "non-technical community space" use case much better than any other popular offering that I know of. These used to be called "forums" and were very popular until Facebook invented groups and murdered them all.

Forums traditionally have been difficult for non-technical users to set up (requiring at a minimum configuing and paying for a shared web host). Certainly I don't recall any popular "managed forum" service pre-Facebook.

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

#360

Post by drewmol »

taurath wrote: post #220
btilly wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It’ll be a slow chip away and then a mass migration catalyzed by some event. The chip away is already well under way.

I agree, and the chip sure seems to be arriving sooner, and progressing faster than my own (pretty sure my position is very short on facebook compared to most) gloomy forecast. Just looked it up and the domain: grandkids.com is being marketred by Domain Agents Platform Inc. advertising a min bid $500. A few years after the mass migration you predict, I propose that domain for Facebook's rebranding...
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