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U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

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Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#311

Post by dgudkov »

no_wizard wrote: post #287

Here's the kicker, which I think others have pointed out, but I want to say this succinctly: First, to quote the article: > The big gainer, interestingly, is under the same roof as Facebook. It's their co-owned Instagram Now, to my point: The average person does not care about privacy, just the illusion of privacy (I suspect people reading this site intuitively know this. At some level, nearly everyone is in differen…

I don't think the migration is caused by privacy concerns. Facebook has become ridiculously bloated with all kinds of features up to the point where it starts resembling enterprise software rather than an online consumer service. Even I, a techie, sometimes have hard times understanding how to do this or that in Facebook.

On the other hand, Instagram is plain simple and understandable.

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#312

Post by fartcannon »

osrec wrote: post #306

I was a regular user of Facebook, now I'm not. I never used Instagram, but I can see that becoming as tedious as Facebook for people who do. I use WhatsApp every 5 minutes, but I don't think Facebook monetises it yet to any large degree. I have a hunch that as people leave the "whimsical" platforms, only the universally useful WhatsApp will continue to hold on to users. If they don't monetise it, they may well have t…

They monetize the data though?

They monetize the heck out of the data. Why not just use something that doesn't? Be the change you want to see.

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#313

Post by _cs2017_ »

no_wizard wrote: post #287

Here's the kicker, which I think others have pointed out, but I want to say this succinctly: First, to quote the article: > The big gainer, interestingly, is under the same roof as Facebook. It's their co-owned Instagram Now, to my point: The average person does not care about privacy, just the illusion of privacy (I suspect people reading this site intuitively know this. At some level, nearly everyone is in differen…

If Instagram doesn't heavily customize the ads or the news feed, then how does it extract any value from the data it collects?

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#314

Post by osrec »

fartcannon wrote: post #312
osrec wrote: post #306

I was a regular user of Facebook, now I'm not. I never used Instagram, but I can see that becoming as tedious as Facebook for people who do. I use WhatsApp every 5 minutes, but I don't think Facebook monetises it yet to any large degree. I have a hunch that as people leave the "whimsical" platforms, only the universally useful WhatsApp will continue to hold on to users. If they don't monetise it, they may well have t…

They monetize the data though? They monetize the heck out of the data. Why not just use something that doesn't? Be the change you want to see.

But they probably use the data to target users with Facebook/Instagram ads. If those platforms go south, then what's the data going to be used for?!

P.S. I use Signal. Problem is no one else does :p

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#315

Post by badfrog »

no_wizard wrote: post #287

Here's the kicker, which I think others have pointed out, but I want to say this succinctly: First, to quote the article: > The big gainer, interestingly, is under the same roof as Facebook. It's their co-owned Instagram Now, to my point: The average person does not care about privacy, just the illusion of privacy (I suspect people reading this site intuitively know this. At some level, nearly everyone is in differen…

> Instagram provides that illusion by not injecting opinionated content into your feed (The most obvious example: you aren't seeing injected news stories in your Instagram feed, generally its only ads and people you follow, and the ads are marked)

What Facebook content do you consider "injected"? AFAIK, the only things in feed are:

1) Posts, events, shares, etc from people or pages that you follow

2) Posts that your friends have interacted with (liked, commented on, etc)

3) Ads that are marked as "promoted"

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#316

Post by baroffoos »

dd36 wrote: post #295
no_wizard wrote: post #287

Here's the kicker, which I think others have pointed out, but I want to say this succinctly: First, to quote the article: > The big gainer, interestingly, is under the same roof as Facebook. It's their co-owned Instagram Now, to my point: The average person does not care about privacy, just the illusion of privacy (I suspect people reading this site intuitively know this. At some level, nearly everyone is in differen…

I think they do actually care about privacy but are only ever offered illusion. The problem really is lack of choice.

No one wants choice either. Having 100 social media apps on your phone is not ideal. We want one choice that is also a good choice. That seems virtually impossible when companies are motivated only by profit and only kept in check by customers having a better choice or by government regulation.

If facebook was driven purely by the motivation to help people stay in touch with their friends and to find events going on it would be a truly wonderful platform. Virtually every issue on facebook comes from seeking profits. At least problems from facebooks side anyway. There is also the social issues of propaganda and jealousy but facebook would have more time to deal with these when they aren't making the company more money.

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#317

Post by smacktoward »

MR4D wrote: post #39
kojackst wrote: post #10

Note: personal opinion bellow It seems to me that the overall interest in Facebook is decreasing. The social network hasn't had any interesting feature added to it in the last couple of years. It's becoming boring and boring, so that's why I believe people are leaving. Still, Instagram and WhatsApp are running strong with barely no competition. We don't see any news about their user base decreasing and news channels…

I thought FB was integrating their messaging platforms? That seemed to make all the news rounds a month ago. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/technology/facebook-insta... [1] https://mashable.com/article/mark-zuckerberg-speaks-on-whats...

Integrating the backends of the messaging systems, not the frontends. There will still be separate apps called "Messenger," "Whatsapp," "Instagram," etc., but they'll just be different fixtures set on top of identical plumbing.

This approach opens up exciting new opportunities for market segmentation via badge engineering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badge_engineering

... in much the same way that Ford (say) could design one car and then sell it to very different audiences as the Ford Taurus, Mercury Sable, and Lincoln Continental.

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#319

Post by jd492 »

no_wizard wrote: post #287

Here's the kicker, which I think others have pointed out, but I want to say this succinctly: First, to quote the article: > The big gainer, interestingly, is under the same roof as Facebook. It's their co-owned Instagram Now, to my point: The average person does not care about privacy, just the illusion of privacy (I suspect people reading this site intuitively know this. At some level, nearly everyone is in differen…

I did not leave Facebook because of privacy concerns. That's your biggest mistaken assumption.

I work on Big Data for a living and know how inept companies are at actually doing anything useful with personal data. The data being generated is massive and the vast amount of it is random and useless.

My reason for reducing my social media presence is the Like count next to every thought expressed. By adding a publicly visible number next to every expressed human thought, you influence behavior and thinking. This has all kinds of consequences that tech corps and society are waking up to - ledger.humanetech.com

That is why I have consciously reduced my social media usage.

Re: U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

#320

Post by squirrelicus »

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #309
no_wizard wrote: post #287

Here's the kicker, which I think others have pointed out, but I want to say this succinctly: First, to quote the article: > The big gainer, interestingly, is under the same roof as Facebook. It's their co-owned Instagram Now, to my point: The average person does not care about privacy, just the illusion of privacy (I suspect people reading this site intuitively know this. At some level, nearly everyone is in differen…

I think focusing only on privacy is a mistake. Every single person I’ve talked to that has deleted Facebook has done so because it did not improve or enrich their lives whatsoever, in fact, they saw it as a net negative. Why do people feel the need to endlessly browse pictures and statements by loose connections? Not one person I’ve talked to has mentioned privacy. Yes, many of those people are on Instagram, but some…

I think FB and people in general dramatically overstate how many connections they'll lose if they quit Facebook. I quit Facebook 9 years ago, but haven't lost a connection I cared about. I did lose connection with real people that were a net negative in my life, though
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