How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study
tedgioia.substack.com
How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study
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Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study
#2> Instead of serving users, the dominant company decides it’s better to control them.
Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study
#3I believe the analysis and the lesson learned are completely wrong.
The real reason for Facebook's decline is that Apple knee-capped their advertising.
The lesson in this is: don't let another company be able to get between you and your customers.
Google took this lesson to heart some years back, hence the massive investment in Chrome browser and Android so that no company could come between Google and its users.
Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study
#4> I can’t imagine a single Spotify user ever saying: “Please make sure you never tell me the members of the band.”
Does Spotify even know who was in the band? Is that metadata anyone attached to the tracks? Sure: if it wasn't they could have asked for it, but if they already have a ton of music without that metadata is the feature ever going to be useful as an afterthought? Does any other music platform have this feature? This example is so weird it is making it really difficult for me to concentrate on whatever point they are trying to make.
Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study
#5I believe the analysis and the lesson learned are completely wrong. The real reason for Facebook's decline is that Apple knee-capped their advertising. The lesson in this is: don't let another company be able to get between you and your customers. Google took this lesson to heart some years back, hence the massive investment in Chrome browser and Android so that no company could come between Google and its users.
Facebook's and Google's customers are advertisers, not end-users, no?
Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study
#6Yet another article conflating the decline of Meta's stock price with actual collapse. Three of Meta's products have more users than TikTok:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-net...
There are legimate concerns but saying that a company on track to do $120 billion in revenue for the year is collapsing is disingenuous.
Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study
#7This article operates on the premise that companies can keep their users around indefinitely, if only they treat them with respect. I am not sure that's true in the case of social media companies (and probably other types of companies, too). I think there's an element of fashion to it. Companies go out of fashion. If you're in Gen Z, it's more fashionable right now to use Tiktok than it is to use Instagram. It's still more fashionable to use Instagram than it is to use Facebook.
How fashionable these platforms are seem to be inversely correlated with how deeply they've penetrated society. Once a teenager sees that her grandma is using Facebook, it starts losing its special luster.
That's not to say that shitty product choices don't also play a factor, but I have a feeling that it's a smaller factor than fashion at the end of the day.
Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study
#8I believe the analysis and the lesson learned are completely wrong. The real reason for Facebook's decline is that Apple knee-capped their advertising. The lesson in this is: don't let another company be able to get between you and your customers. Google took this lesson to heart some years back, hence the massive investment in Chrome browser and Android so that no company could come between Google and its users.
Apple's demonetization was painful financially but the platform losing steam is a deeper and different problem that started before that event.
Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study
#9Pretty funny that a substack called "Honest broker" has this paragraph:
"Do you think I’m exaggerating? Trust me, the people who run the company believe in 24/7 surveillance as the single most important feature on the platform. They absolutely must monetize your participation, and can’t do that without putting you under observation (as law enforcement officials call it.)"
There is also a graph lie. Even though the article was printed today, it shows that stock price from about Nov. 3 the price nadir at $90. It's been above $110 for 3 weeks.
I don't suggest that Facebook is a good way to spend time (it's boring). But the idea that it's even in the top 100 worst things in the world is crazy.
Anyway Ted was a decent music journalist who has been driven mad by tech hurting journalism. Tech derangement syndrome.
Re: How web platforms collapse: The Facebook case study
#10this guy might want to include data about facebook user number, dau / mau, instead of stock numbers.
facebook itself, not even counting insta or whatsapp, continues to grow.
it is hard to claim a "collapse" if the user base is growing