> In some ways they have though, at least in terms of time allocation. When Facebook was in its heyday it was the default social network. They dont seem to be adding as many new users and I suspect they are churning old users. They also have to compete with wechat, twitter, tiktok, reddit, twitch, etc so its not obvious to anyone but facebook how loyal the userbase is.
But it has nothing to do with loyalty. It has all to do with algorithms. If Facebook's AI is superior to Twitter, Wechat, TikTok, Reddit and Twitch then advertisers will never leave Facebook. All Facebook needs is 30 seconds of user time to show them ads. Also don't forget the audience network that Facebook has. Are you playing a free game of Ludo on your mobile? You will be shown an ad in between games. That ad is served by Facebook. So it is not even necessary for the user to be on the platform to be shown ads! Now how do you tackle that? Publishers will also have to abandon Facebook. That will not happen so easily. The only way to tackle Facebook is to create an alternative that has at least 50% of the user base that Facebook does and also have an equally good AI Ad platform or superior.
> Facebook is becoming less relevant so yes these companies will most likely be back, but what about 5 years? They might not be willing to pay the same rates. Facebook will kind of be like a personal email client that people check occasionally. Facebook.com specifically, Instagram itself will remain popular for a while I would wager.
Facebook knows that. That is why they are constantly improving their algos to make it cheaper themselves. Advertisers don't want access to a billion people really. They just need to sell to a few hundred or thousand people to make their profits. Even if Facebook userbase comes down by 50%, if the Facebook AI is half as decent as it claims to be, it will still find the right audience for advertisers to target!