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Facebook loses users for the first time

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#561

Post by pratnala »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #523
randomsearch wrote: post #504

This is how the narrative of Facebook looks to me: Zuckerberg got lucky and then executed brilliantly, transitioned from nerd hacker to CEO amazingly well. He deserves a lot of credit for that. Since then, Facebook have innovated very little. Zuckerberg recognised this, and bought Instagram and Whatsapp in lieu of building an innovative company. The latter is clearly really difficult to do. Without a stream of new id…

I don't think it's going to die as quickly as you think - it's a pretty sticky product. The network effects that made it attractive might kill it pretty fast when they evaporate, but it's going to be a major player in adtech for at least a decade, which might just give it time to be "saved" by some of the plays they're now pivoting towards. On the ethics thing: they introduced some mechanisms around this, but the app…

WhatsApp already does payments in India (and few other countries?) [1]

[1]: https://www.whatsapp.com/payments/

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#562

Post by pratnala »

stingraycharles wrote: post #538
FullyFunctional wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone remember that Next Big Thing was supposed to be 3D TVs? I think VR is similarly misguided (ie, will never go mainstream but will have a healthy niche).

VR seems more interactive and way stickier, I don’t think you can necessarily compare it to 3D TVs, in the same way a computer and TV are very different. Having said that, I’m also skeptical of the whole metaverse thing, as we had that stuff a long time ago already (Second Life) and it was a flop. VR needs to become extremely ubiquitous and hassle-free for such a thing to work.

Idk if it is just me but I find VR headsets just tiring after a point.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#563

Post by dagw »

rland wrote: post #319
elwell wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is for old people. Instagram is for moderately old people. Snapchat is for moderately young people. TikTok is for young people.

Facebook : boomers Instagram : millenials TikTok : gen z snapchat is sort of irrelevant from what I can gather.

Snapchat is the primary social media and chat platform for my daughter and all her friends (ages 11-13).

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#565

Post by napolux »

petesergeant wrote: post #544
gman83 wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The acquisition strategy could have worked going forwards, seeing as there's not much anti-trust will in the U.S. against M&A, but the problem is that they missed the chance to buy musical.ly (bought for $1 billion by ByteDance in 2017) which became TikTok. If they had made this acquisition they would be in a very different position. Looking at my teenage kids and their friends, they barely use Instagram (let alone F…

> Looking at my teenage kids and their friends I wonder how important this demographic really is. I understand there's an argument for kids being the future, and so on, but almost everyone I know with disposible income is on Instagram and Facebook, via the apps, and seeing ads. As teenage kids stop being teenage kids, they're going to start caring about sharing baby photos and travel photos and cyber-bullying their m…

> they're going to start caring about sharing baby photos and travel photos and cyber-bullying their mayor and stuff, for which the only games in town are Instagram and FB

You're assuming that TikTok won't evolve in a span of 10 years.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#566

Post by prometheus76 »

brtkdotse wrote: post #557
FullyFunctional wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone remember that Next Big Thing was supposed to be 3D TVs? I think VR is similarly misguided (ie, will never go mainstream but will have a healthy niche).

A non-trivial percentage of the population get motion sickness easily. VR is a non-starter for them.

Then there's the sweating and the standing in the middle of the room for hours(?) and the weird, clunky, dissociated controls.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#567

Post by rendall »

danieljacksonno wrote: post #541
rendall wrote: post #528

Speaking as someone who deleted his Facebook account years ago, a positive that FB brings to the world is ubiquitous and easy sharing of personal information with the public. With an FB account, you can keep in touch with even casual acquaintances, perhaps forming a connection. That's pretty deep, and a net positive for humanity, and fulfills the promise of the internet. I predict that what we call "social media" tod…

The picture you paint of connecting with friends and acquaintances is no longer how Facebook works for me. The last years, my Facebook feed has been completely dominated by a few groups I'm in (OK, I guess - but not what I signed up for originally), news and commercial entities I have "liked" at some point, and ads. I never see my friends there any more, unless they're the marketing hustle type. It feels honestly not…

Yeah. Agreed. It had stopped working that way for me when I quit, also. And they kept lecturing me and my friends about community standards. I got tired of that stifling, moralizing hypocrisy. I guess I speak more of the original vision of FB.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#569

Post by twelve40 »

sudhirj wrote: post #343
nradov wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's what your friends were sharing then maybe you need better friends?

Social media worsens people’s perceptions of the world can actively influences what they share and consider their own opinion. The same point applies to family, for example, and whether I need better family or not they’re all I’ve got. And Facebook has pushed them really far down whatever fringe they had a slight inclination to. Before Facebook any extreme views could be tempered a bit in family conversations, but no…

I still don't get how this is unique to Facebook or even at all avoidable in the future. Internet facilitates communication. Unless you censor every word, it _will_ be used for pushing conspiracy theories, too, how can you avoid that? If, let's say, the government shuts down Facebook, they will go to Telegram. If the government shuts down Telegram, they will go to a bar and hang out with their tribe. Or find another new service that's not censored. It seems to be a function of communication, especially enhanced by technology, not Facebook in particular.

For me, data point of 1, I don't see a problem in my feed. I use FB to stay in touch with my friends and family all around the world, whom I would very rarely hear from otherwise, I get 0 political posts, if somebody posts something that upsets me, I mute them, yes, including family members. Even if this is your family, you are still not obligated to sign up to every one of their posts, just like you are not obligated to listen to everything they have to say in person.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#570

Post by rightbyte »

WeekSpeller wrote: post #368
sujesh wrote: post #327

I deleted my FB a while ago and it truely helped my online mental health. The fb feed was full of false news and hate speech. I reported as much as I could but nothing happening. There wasn't any regulations and I felt more toxic on the contents. I am not gonna lie there was a positive side like knowing the news instantly but It's not worth it apparently.

I recently reported a hate speech targeted at Indian minority (not Muslim). The text literally had gen$c!d3 threats and other usual trigger words in it, and there were like copy paste of same post in thousands (probably a campaign). Facebook replied "does not violate their conditions blah blah".

The reports are useless. I guess the reviewers have to achieve some KPI and have to just click past reports to have a chance.
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