Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Instagram Is Facebook Now

embedded.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 396 posts

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#321

Post by emptyfile »

theshrike79 wrote: post #292
k_bx wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine is of course no major market for Facebook, but it's a good example that doesn't match what you describe at all. In Ukraine, Facebook is the place where you follow top journalists, anti-corruption people, activists, and other public figures. It's basically an extremely valuable addition to the media, where anyone can be lifted in popularity in a matter of hours if their content is truly important. Facebook has…

The rest of the world seems to use Twitter for this. Despite all its faults it seems to be better for this kind of stuff. Facebook's algorithms limit the way posts can be found way too much.

Twitter is not really used outside of North America.

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#322

Post by tzfld »

ddalex wrote: post #279
randomsearch wrote: post #264

I think Facebook (meta)‘s key asset is now WhatsApp. Facebook is practically dead. It’s just a stream of awful content that isn’t from your friends. It’s hyper advertising and desperate attempts to clone other platforms as it slowly dies. It’ll continue for a long time, eventually becoming yahoo like, but young people do not care about it at all. Instagram has similarly been over monetised but in an earlier stage. It…

The problem is that Whatsapp is a very non-US-oriented app - its is very popular in EU and Asia/Africa/Latin America, but none of my US friends use it other than to reach us outside of the US. Since it's not US-focused, the US execs (and boards, investors) tend to dismiss it. This explains why Whatsapp was left, relatively, untouched by FB in terms of user experience, after the acquisition - it's not shiny by any mea…

>is a non-US-oriented app

what does that mean?

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#323

Post by asddubs »

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #315
shmel wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter literally limits the length of your tweets. What can you say in a couple of phrases in the context of activism and politics? Just link another platform? Don't get me started on twitter threads, this is abomination. My patience usually runs out after the third tweet in a thread. Another day Twitter CEO resigned and he posted a screenshot of his mail. Why couldn't he post it in a proper text format so people ca…

> Twitter literally limits the length of your tweets That's what you have screenshots for ... duh

an accessibility nightmare of their own making

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#324

Post by zwirbl »

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #318
spacelamb wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another anecdote: an undergraduate at a top university I knew, with publications, leadership positions, and strong research experience at the time, was also into reality television, and specifically avoided dramas/prestige television (e.g. Mad Men, Breaking Bad). In addition to not requiring thinking, I remember he also mentioned that it's harder to get "hooked" and end up binge-watching episodes. The perspective is…

mad men, breaking bad are trash as far as I am concerned.

good for you

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#325

Post by duud »

littlestymaar wrote: post #45

So Meta wants to kill their last relevant product? They really do want to become the next Yahoo! right? Facebook has yielded much more profit than Amazon but their user base has remained stagnant and aging for years, and their recent PR stuns (Libra a few years ago, now the “Metaverse”) don't really sound like their perspective will improve. I can understand why a publicly traded company engages in short term profit…

Zuck doesn't own 50+% of the company (just the voting rights) and Oculus, FB Marketplace, FB Groups and WhatsApp are all very relevant market leaders. In terms of the rebrand they committed $10+ billion a year to VR development and promoted the head of VR to CTO so it's a pretty bold PR stunt.

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#326

Post by theshrike79 »

shmel wrote: post #301
theshrike79 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rest of the world seems to use Twitter for this. Despite all its faults it seems to be better for this kind of stuff. Facebook's algorithms limit the way posts can be found way too much.

Twitter literally limits the length of your tweets. What can you say in a couple of phrases in the context of activism and politics? Just link another platform? Don't get me started on twitter threads, this is abomination. My patience usually runs out after the third tweet in a thread. Another day Twitter CEO resigned and he posted a screenshot of his mail. Why couldn't he post it in a proper text format so people ca…

> Twitter literally limits the length of your tweets.

This is why we get those god-awful "this tweet thread should've been a link to a blogpost" monstrosities =)

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#327

Post by astrange »

emptyfile wrote: post #321
theshrike79 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rest of the world seems to use Twitter for this. Despite all its faults it seems to be better for this kind of stuff. Facebook's algorithms limit the way posts can be found way too much.

Twitter is not really used outside of North America.

Japan uses it.

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#328

Post by uuuugh »

yomly wrote: post #310
eloisius wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which countries in Asia still count it as the most popular messaging app? China is on WeeChat, Korea has KakaoTalk and LINE is everywhere else. It is pretty amazing that Meta had three messaging apps and none of them are close to something like LINE in terms of ubiquity or utility.

My understanding is that WhatsApp is pretty big in India and my experience is that WeChat is pretty ubiquitous within SE Asia. The Singapore govt uses WhatsApp now for much of its govt comms and a lot of small business uses WhatsApp. Also recently in the news, you can book an Uber via WhatsApp . I'd be curious how WhatsApp does in Japan and South Korea. Also my hunch is that Aus and NZ use WhatsApp heavily too

From my experience, most messaging in Australia is done on FB Messenger and Instagram, or by SMS/iMessage.

I live in Hong Kong and WhatsApp is pretty big here.

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#329

Post by astrange »

stevofolife wrote: post #257
OtomotO wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing that doesn't stop growing, is cancer. The focus on growth is disgusting and cancer for the real world, the environment as well as society

[flagged]

Socialist economies need growth or else all your citizens start leaving and you have to build a wall. That and it's cruel to not let their economy grow when everyone started out in poverty. China is obsessed with economic growth.

Hardly any economic motivations are removed by getting rid of shareholder capitalism; you still have markets, a growing population, and you still need productivity to increase.

Oh, and eliminating growth would destroy the environment because 1. environmentalism is a luxury good 2. low-productivity technologies consume much more resources than modern ones do.

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#330

Post by skydhash »

eloisius wrote: post #282
ddalex wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that Whatsapp is a very non-US-oriented app - its is very popular in EU and Asia/Africa/Latin America, but none of my US friends use it other than to reach us outside of the US. Since it's not US-focused, the US execs (and boards, investors) tend to dismiss it. This explains why Whatsapp was left, relatively, untouched by FB in terms of user experience, after the acquisition - it's not shiny by any mea…

Which countries in Asia still count it as the most popular messaging app? China is on WeeChat, Korea has KakaoTalk and LINE is everywhere else. It is pretty amazing that Meta had three messaging apps and none of them are close to something like LINE in terms of ubiquity or utility.

Not Asia, but SMS is dead pretty much in Haiti, and everyone uses WhatsApp. Internet usage is low enough to even be an alternative to phone calls in most cases (especially for the young adults category).
Post reply on HN