Ask HN: Is 2018 the end of Facebook? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is 2018 the end of Facebook?

#61

Post by varelse » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 4:17 PM UTC

ajb257 wrote: post #29

mseebach wrote: post #2

No. I think you're overestimating how much bad press Facebook is actually getting outside the tech bubble. Facebook is going to get done in by the fact that the younger generation doesn't like it, but that process has been underway for a few years now, and it will take many more years to complete (obviously offering Zuckerberg many chances to turn the ship around).

> Facebook is going to get done in by the fact that the younger generation doesn't like it All the younger generation I know are big users of Instagram and WhatsApp - both FB properties.

Indeed, he is killing his darling before someone else can.

No interest in working there personally because I despise both PHP and working in an open office, but I don't think the Zuckerberg brand of fine social content is going away any time soon.

Re: Ask HN: Is 2018 the end of Facebook?

#62

Post by TAForObvReasons » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 4:18 PM UTC

corobo wrote: post #50

golangnews wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking more of this one which is more directly relevant to abusing user expectations of privacy: http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims... Neither murdoch nor Zuckerberg are admirable characters.

You're comparing Murdoch now to Zuckerberg aged 19. I dread to think the sort of nonsense I said in private IMs at 19.

Zuckerberg was describing Facebook when he started. At some level, that mentality is reflected in the company and its business practices.

Re: Ask HN: Is 2018 the end of Facebook?

#63

Post by chipotle_coyote » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 4:18 PM UTC

tammer wrote: post #47

Facebook is extremely valuable to an enormous number of people. The only thing that will end it is a non-profit competitor a la Wikipedia. This isn't my idea, & I expect to see one of these emerge and take over in the next 1-3 years.

I confess my first reaction on reading this comment was "You mean the way Mastodon emerged a year ago and made Twitter completely irrelevant?"

It's possible that Facebook will be disrupted (although I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Facebook is operating at such an unprecedented scale that it's hard to apply traditional "rules of thumb" to them), and it's possible that what disrupts them will be a nonprofit competitor--but it's not going to disrupt them because it's nonprofit. Bluntly, idealism isn't sufficient; I don't see much indication that it's even necessary. Wikipedia "won" in its space against early competitors largely because of the features that its competitors perceived as its big weakness, e.g., not only can anyone read it for free, anyone can edit it for free, without even making an account.

A rule of thumb that I do think will prove to hold up: whatever replaces Facebook will be at least as difference from FB as FB was from MySpace. We're seeing that to some degree in the interest shift from FB to Instagram and SnapChat. (Of course, FB owns Instagram; another thing that's going to make them really difficult to disrupt as a corporation rather than a service is that they're big enough to throw money at potential disruptors until they sell out.) I think it's also going to be very difficult for a nonprofit to disrupt them for that reason, though, honestly; remember, even as huge as Wikipedia is, they're constantly struggling for money, and their infrastructure is way less resource-intensive than something like FB's is. Thing That Replaces FB may solve that by being fully decentralized and distributed, but it needs to be just as easy to use as FB is (and again, provide a more compelling reason to use it rather than "it's not FB").

Re: Ask HN: Is 2018 the end of Facebook?

#64

Post by beavis2 » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 4:18 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #49

always_good wrote: post #18

Was it the end of Windows just because Windows 10 had some hoopla in the press about analytics and its auto-update? No, nobody cared. I mean, it was a meme that everyone made jokes about, even late night talk shows. But nobody cared.

Poor analogy. Most people with Windows computers can’t simply switch to Linux and expect their lives to be the same - they have file formats and IT department setups to maintain - while most people could quit Facebook and see no significant change in their lives, except perhaps for the better. And yes, people do care. I work at a top tier U.S. university, and in our college at least we have so far refused to update o…

Off-topic, but..

> refused to update or support our Windows machines past 7

What's your long term strategy?

Is there a silver bullet?

Re: Ask HN: Is 2018 the end of Facebook?

#65

Post by madman2890 » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 4:19 PM UTC

The U.S. makes up a large part of facebook, but as someone living in south america, it ain't going anywhere in this continent.

Re: Ask HN: Is 2018 the end of Facebook?

#66

Post by anon230851370 » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 4:21 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #53

Panjam wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting information, thank you. The knives do seem to be out for FB right now, but equally it is the douchiest of douchebag business models, essentially: we'll give you a means to engage with the world, but we're going to watch how you do it, in order to manipulate your preferences. It's like the Stasi but in corporate form. Essentially, it will die because it's the Harvey Weinstein of corporate America - and bec…

> Essentially, it will die because it's the Harvey Weinstein of corporate America - and because all the #metoo victims find their voice, with a little help from the other studio heads which would like to see the monster disappear. What exactly are you trying to say about Facebook with this forced metaphor?

I'm not the original poster, but the metaphor clearly seems to be that Facebook is the dirty old man that many people don't want to get in bed with but feel they have to.

Re: Ask HN: Is 2018 the end of Facebook?

#67

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 4:22 PM UTC

tammer wrote: post #47

Facebook is extremely valuable to an enormous number of people. The only thing that will end it is a non-profit competitor a la Wikipedia. This isn't my idea, & I expect to see one of these emerge and take over in the next 1-3 years.

I don't think that will help.

The problem isn't Facebook. The problem is us. People. Humans. We're too prone to addictive behaviors. We're too prone to believe what we want to believe. And at least some of us are too willing to exploit a medium to manipulate the behavior of others.

A non-profit won't change any of that. People will still become addicted to it; it will still propagate fake news; and people will still use it to manipulate others.

Re: Ask HN: Is 2018 the end of Facebook?

#68

Post by TomMarius » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 4:24 PM UTC

ajb257 wrote: post #29

mseebach wrote: post #2

No. I think you're overestimating how much bad press Facebook is actually getting outside the tech bubble. Facebook is going to get done in by the fact that the younger generation doesn't like it, but that process has been underway for a few years now, and it will take many more years to complete (obviously offering Zuckerberg many chances to turn the ship around).

> Facebook is going to get done in by the fact that the younger generation doesn't like it All the younger generation I know are big users of Instagram and WhatsApp - both FB properties.

I literally don't know anyone who uses Whatsapp, only Messenger. These things are very different across the world.

Re: Ask HN: Is 2018 the end of Facebook?

#69

Post by aylmao » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 4:24 PM UTC

amorphid wrote: post #15

z2 wrote: post #6

What is the competitor threat or new rising star that will usurp Facebook's position as a people-connector? LinkedIn? WeChat? Facebook was in super growth mode by the time MySpace stagnated. Or does "end" mean something else, if not measured in users? Is it the year people realize that the idealized image of themselves and their thousands of friends not worth maintaining or checking?

Maybe it gets replaced by "micro-networks". Craigslist used to be the place to go all my classifieds needs. Now it's a cesspool of spam, garbage, and scams.

This is one of the things that has me split about Facebook. There is essentially no anonymity on the platform, and some people even report needing to verify their names with state IDs, which is a little much IMO (I was one of those users).

Yet, this also means very little spam and garbage. There seem to be little bots in the platform as far as I can see, and the few that send me friend requests seem to be taken down within hours, as opposed to Twitter for example.

Re: Ask HN: Is 2018 the end of Facebook?

#70

Post by azag0 » Mon, Mar 19, 2018, 4:25 PM UTC

remir wrote: post #58

A lot of people may be less and less interested in Facebook "the social network", but a lot of them are still using Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram, so FB is still huge and dominant in the social sphere.

Anecdotal evidence: That is the case in my circle of friends. My news feed has been empty for quite some time, but we still use the messenger and facebook itself to organize our own private events.