Earlier quoted context omitted.
This article is literally about their daily active users number dropping.
HN Users typically read the heading and jump to the comment section..
That’s where all the insights are…
Facebook loses users for the first time
391–400 of 1001 posts
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's so interesting how different people's Facebook feeds are so different. I do have excessive ads for products, that's fair enough, but I have absolutely nothing political. My only issue with Facebook is that it's poorly designed, actually very dated and cluttered, and none of my friends really use it for personal posts except me. I suspect that each Facebook user exists in a different bubble. Possibly they see som…
This is exactly what happens. What's worse, I thought it was doing that because I had responded to some political post, but FB just sees "you engaged with person-X, I will now alert you when person-X posts, and when people respond to his posts, even if you haven't looked at it" This led to increasingly divisive messages literally showing up in my notifications that I had nothing to do with. This still happens months…
The same is true for YouTube. Somebody sent me funny cat video which I don't usually watch, and now my feed is full of funny videos, or I quickly searched some Minecraft guide for a friend (which I don't play), and now I have many Minecraft guides in the feed.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess the business model of social media companies is coming to fore. FB has a captive audience, that is aging with facebook and will continue using it. It is clear why FB purchases IG / WA. They are paying money to capture audiences with money earned from FB. Going ahead, the cycle will repeat. Once the teens in IG grow into adults, FB will use money from that to buy / make another platform. In this context, the m…
Except there are 2 major differences: 1. Even if FB isn't forced to divest their recent acquisitions, the regulatory environment will make it much more difficult to do the equivalent of buying Instagram in the future. 2. Any good ideas on how I can short "The Metaverse"? I still think the Metaverse is bullshit and will continue to be bullshit for the near future. The very first time I got on Facebook I was pretty ent…
The thing doesn’t even exist. It’s all just smoke and mirrors at this point. Not even that—where is the tech demo?
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#394People like to hate on Facebook, but how is any other social media different? They are all free services that profit from your personal information. Some just have better PR than the other.
Exactly. It is no different to the rest of them. This game is simply one tyrant (TikTok) dethroning another (Meta) and all of them make money out of our personal data. Facebook (the social network) was known to be in decline for years. The real attention is on Instagram and WhatsApp are still adding users. I wouldn't rush to rule them out yet over this.
At least I have the feeling that newcomers like TikTok don’t have this "embrace the web" thing that Facebook had during a decade with embedded tracking scripts everywhere on any website.
I feel like TikTok is more closed and that I don’t have a shadow profile on it like Facebook did.
But it’s also because the web (especially the browsers and mobile OS) learnt its lessons.
OTOH, it also means that newcomers will have to make even more efforts to to "compete" with the historical open web which can create even more situations of information disappearing from the open web.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#395I 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.
It's so interesting how different people's Facebook feeds are so different. I do have excessive ads for products, that's fair enough, but I have absolutely nothing political. My only issue with Facebook is that it's poorly designed, actually very dated and cluttered, and none of my friends really use it for personal posts except me. I suspect that each Facebook user exists in a different bubble. Possibly they see som…
FB is RSS for non-tech content.
In my experience FB is what you make it to be. It requires some curration effort but you can mold it to be useful. But you can’t just add, you’ll have to block as well, including ads - each ad source can be turned off.
For me, FB is the main source of news about local concerts. Sure, you’ll find about major ones anyway, but there’s no way to effectively track small ones. It doesn’t have to be music. FB is the easiest way to track niche local businesses, events, or groups of interest. Some of them even don’t have web sites and FB is where they post. Even when they have sites, you wouldn’t visit each of them every day to find out what is new and interesting and you’ll miss stuff.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#396People like to hate on Facebook, but how is any other social media different? They are all free services that profit from your personal information. Some just have better PR than the other.
The problem is that there is social media. Facebook is the biggest success, which is why people focus on it. Facebook displaces other forms of communication I prefer to use. I used to use email heavily to communicate with friends. Email was the best format for me, now no one uses it. Everyone is on 12 messaging platforms, Facebook started that trend with messenger. I used to be able to go to business websites and get…
This has become me. Facebook encourages you to become confrontational with all your friends.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#397I 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 have seen zero hate speech, but I mostly use FB to share pictures of my kids.
It is because this person is surrounded by toxic people.
My feed is updates from friends. I don't really hate speech or anything toxic.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#398The big reason behind losses was likely the iOS 14 tracking update. Right after it a ton of Facebook Advertisers groups on Facebook started complaining all of their carefully crafted campaigns were not producing revenue anymore. Targeting and regathering stopped making sales for advertisers and they quickly stopped spending on FB. The people who still spend are now doing videos as ads. Small advertisers were the cana…
That makes sense for revenue but how would that drive a loss of users? I’m not seeing the connection and would like to understand.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#399People like to hate on Facebook, but how is any other social media different? They are all free services that profit from your personal information. Some just have better PR than the other.
Hacker News and other relatively smaller forums are different. They are free social media networks that aren't optimized to maximize engagement, promote outrage, or instill a fear of missing out.
They are also anonymous. I could be flaming somebody I know in real life but it does matter. Don’t ask don’t tell.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trillion dollar tech giants are expected to GROW to justify their valuations. Look at the numbers alphabet and apple posted the last few days. Huge growth. Facebook is not only growing but much worse, shrinking. I’ve been bullish on FB from the ipo date but this seems like the beginning of the end unless the meta verse is out of this world
I've never really understood this MBA mentality because growth must stop at some point. There are only so many humans on earth. The expectation that a company can grow forever is impossible, at least until we find an alien planet with a population willing to sign up for Facebook.
True but Facebook was valued for this growth. Better or worse if they don’t grow their stock price will take a well deserved beating.