I am seeing fewer and fewer of my friends and relatives on Facebook anymore. My feed is overwhelmed with intrusive advertising. I wish I could give it up, but I have to stay because some customers are on it.
Facebook loses users for the first time
751–760 of 1001 posts
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#752This 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…
Zuckerberg was never capable of coming up with products. Facebook is arguably not even his idea. He bought the competition when he couldn't innovate. But the competition got smart and they're not selling anymore. They can smell the blood in the water.
I'm just surprised it's taken this long for it to start affecting hard numbers.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#753Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Controlling the VR metaverse... I just don't see it. Too much innovation. Too much invention. Remember FB can always purchase themselves into the market - pick up a few startups and bodge together a consistent product. I think the problem is that VR tech and apps will take too long to arrive to gain any traction with the wider public, before FB needs it. FB needs hundreds of millions/billions of users, VR hasn't pu…
> even those were balking at having to have FB accounts It's been like what, 3 years? that I've been patiently waiting for the UE (or someone , in general) to mandate Facebook to remove mandatory account signup and tie-in, before buying an Oculus Quest (now 2). I don't care if this means I end up not buying and enjoying it at all in the end. Sadly I guess just a minority have such firm positions when it comes to "vot…
Can you create a new account for the Oculus that isn't tied to anything or used for anything else?
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#754Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft has multi-billion dollar branches - Office, OS, Azure, XBox, Activision, I'm sure I've missed one. It also completely fluffed Nokia. And dodged the bullet that is Yahoo. It's pretty resilient. FB? Like others have said, the social media FB itself is pretty weak, and like you also said - addiction, and walled garden are the locks in. It can only grow financially by (more) acquisitions.
FB has Oculus, which could be compared to XBox (though not yet in size).
XBox is mainstream, Oculus is not. Maybe it will become mainstream too but countless products were the next best thing and faded away.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#755Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft, for all its flaws, has strengths. They're grittier than most and ultimately, know how to deliver software products and build businesses around them... very different products and very different businesses. Leadership was a lever to these, but there was something to lever FB have never built a successful product besides Zuck's original. They have never created a good business besides the FB and program. The…
I very much like your analysis, but retail finance would be an uphill battle for a company like FB that has built such a negative track record of user data handling.
Cheers.
I can certainly see the criticisms mounting, if FB go financial. But, I also recall the many times FB withstood criticism. Criticism from users over product changes. Experts on privacy. Journalists and politicians on social issues and user manipulation. They persevere, and rarely have to give an inch.
OTOH, I think FB is the world leader in gaining leverage from customer data. Their ad business is more based on targeting data than Google's. It could conceivably even survive the demise of FB itself. Finding partners to run ads is doable, and with fb's targeting that still could ad up to major and business.
So perhaps they're not great at securing customer data, though they are probably more as technically capable than most banks. But, they are the very best at leveraging and monetising customer data.
Call it a high risk, high reward investment.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#756No post body was provided.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#757I am seeing fewer and fewer of my friends and relatives on Facebook anymore. My feed is overwhelmed with intrusive advertising. I wish I could give it up, but I have to stay because some customers are on it.
There are ways to block Facebook's ads on your feed. But the only way to win is not play.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#758This 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…
> Since then, Facebook have innovated very little.
Facebook has created Facebook Workplace from scratch which is very successfull, is this not innovating ?
Facebook has resisted the growth of Snapchat, is this not innovating ?
WhatsApp has continued to grow after its acquisition and is very successful today.
Facebook is clearly one of the most innovative company of this size.
Buying companies and being able to make them grow is clear proof that Facebook is innovative. In the real world most acquisitions end up failing
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#759Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am both a fan of blockchain and VR. I also have a strong cynic inside of me that trashes on both of them whenever it can. It's fun being me I suppose :) Blockchain is IMO in a much much much more questionable state of relevancy and usefulness than VR. Why? I workout in VR (supplemental workouts by playing Eleven Table Tennis to the max). I boardgame in VR (Demeo). My GF picks up my headset and plays Beatsaber. You…
>You can have multiple screens in VR. While I'm not the biggest fan of them, I will be if I'd travel to another country, not being able to bring my monitors. This is the problem with VR. It started the adoption process the wrong way - instead of positioning itself as a work enabling tool that you buy for a killer feature - it's just a gimmicky toy that has reasonable stigma around it among normal people (non-techies)…
The pc used to be like this, it will change. Remember when people in high school called us nerds? Now many more people want to be "nerds". We will slowly adopt to VR. It has enough use already, use (!), not potential, use!
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#760My 16yo daughter says FB is for old people and nobody in her age group is using it.
Nothing wrong with old people. There's quite a few of them in our world, and only increasing. Also, old people have money, unlike teenagers. Also, old people stick around, unlike teens that switch networks every year or so.
So...what is the appeal of teenagers again? Is it being "cool"? What can I buy for cool?