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

What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 118 posts

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#51

Post by UncleEntity »

AstralStorm wrote: post #19
grecy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are plenty of examples of companies facing a saturated market Globally though? Are there companies that have saturated the entire planet. Facebook use is BOOMING in the developing world. I've been moving around Africa though 30 countries for 2.5 yeas now - it's rare to meet someone that doesn't have Facebook and whatsapp.

At a certain point, Facebook might face being either broken up or outright nationalized in some places...

I'm actually curious how they could nationalize the "secret sauce" behind fb?

Sure, they could take over their local data centers and hold their employees hostage but without the 100% backing of fb itself there's no way a foreign government could take over their business.

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#52

Post by chillacy »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #30
revskill wrote: post #16

Facebook open sourced many useful libraries, and it's what matters to me first. Secondly, as a user, it has problem, just like any company.

Facebook was instrumental in electing the worst president ever that is causing damage that will last for decades, it seems that every month now a story break that they handle their users' data even worse than thought possible before, but hey, they made this cool open source library so i guess it all balances out!

Why blame Facebook and not:

- voters for actually choosing this guy

- the media for giving this guy so much coverage

- people for not fact checking

Blaming Facebook feels like shooting the messenger. It’s not going to fix any of the underlying issues going into 2020. At worst it’s a distraction, like birthers against Obama.

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#53

Post by chillacy »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #29
hnauz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to suspect they are trying to extort better ad prices from Facebook. This won't stop until they cave. I hope they don't cave. The press already has enough power as it is.

Good. The press should have more power than corporations. Especially corporations with the moral standing of Facebook.

Journalists should have power but the press historically has been abusive and manipulative, and seems like it still is.

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#54

Post by chillacy »

grecy wrote: post #15
mijamo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of examples of companies facing a saturated market. The logical next step is to grow vertically as you cannot grow horizontally anymore. Some succeed, many fail. In the long run, nearly all companies fail.

> There are plenty of examples of companies facing a saturated market Globally though? Are there companies that have saturated the entire planet. Facebook use is BOOMING in the developing world. I've been moving around Africa though 30 countries for 2.5 yeas now - it's rare to meet someone that doesn't have Facebook and whatsapp.

Coca Cola and McDonald’s maybe?

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#55

Post by toastal »

flexie wrote: post #43
pavlov wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook today is in the same place as Microsoft in 2003-2007. Bad old API decisions made in pursuit of quick marketshare have come back to haunt. The main product is seen as lackluster and stagnated. Entries into new markets are seen as "me too" and out of sync with the brand image (Portal and Lasso might be Facebook's Zune). Microsoft survived all that and is now the world's most valuable corporation again. Faceboo…

Facebook is far from where Microsoft were in 2003-2007. Most people (90-something percent?) could chose between Microsoft or Apple or no computer at all. Ordinary consumers could not use a text editor, a spreadsheet, send an email, or browse the internet, without doing it form either a Windows or Apple computer. Apple was a secluded niche for graphical designers and the like. Almost everybody else used a Windows comp…

That's you though.... In many countries, Facebook is the 'free' internet citizens can interact with friends on. It can be used to leverage and ruin your social cred because of how intertwined and unchecked Facebook is in places like Myanmar.

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#56

Post by maeln »

jasode wrote: post #13
maeln wrote: post #10

Facebook as a website can go the way of MySpace. But Facebook as a company will probably not. The subject is touched a bit toward the end of the article but the reality is this: Facebook has reached a critical mass, as a company, that MySpace never did. As such, they can just continue to buy all the other new social network that pop-up and make sure that they have a dominant position in the social network market. Unl…

>, they can just continue to buy all the other new social network that pop-up Yes, many people have this fatalistic perspective about FB but they shouldn't because Zuckerberg can't buy all the competition. Buying a company requires a willing seller [0]. Consider that Facebook itself rejected offers from Viacom (~$1.5 billion), Yahoo (~$1 billion), Microsoft ($24 billion), etc.[1][2] The bigger companies such as Micro…

Absolutely, and I agree with you. They are also not the only company in the market with enough fund to consolidate (for example, TikTok with musical.ly). But, and that's my opinion, they can probably buy enough company to still secure their position.

It's also probably true that social network is also a more "volatile" market (as in, you see user switch from one SN to the other more easily).

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#57

Post by maeln »

buboard wrote: post #24
maeln wrote: post #10

Facebook as a website can go the way of MySpace. But Facebook as a company will probably not. The subject is touched a bit toward the end of the article but the reality is this: Facebook has reached a critical mass, as a company, that MySpace never did. As such, they can just continue to buy all the other new social network that pop-up and make sure that they have a dominant position in the social network market. Unl…

It doesnt even need to continue as a social network. They have a strong foothold in AI and are leading strong with their own DL framework.

I am far from being a expert in this field but isn't Facebook big advantage in AI is being a social network and having access to a huge amount of data ?

As such, isn't their AI business very reliant on them being in the social network market ?

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#60

Post by loudmax »

mr_toad wrote: post #22
pavlov wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook today is in the same place as Microsoft in 2003-2007. Bad old API decisions made in pursuit of quick marketshare have come back to haunt. The main product is seen as lackluster and stagnated. Entries into new markets are seen as "me too" and out of sync with the brand image (Portal and Lasso might be Facebook's Zune). Microsoft survived all that and is now the world's most valuable corporation again. Faceboo…

Microsoft lives on enterprise sales; AD domain servers, CALs, Exchange, SQL server. I’m not sure Facebook has an equivalent product.

Microsoft's vendor lock-in is still very dominant, and a lot of sysadmins don't really have a deep understanding of anything else. Facebook's social network effects are analogous to Microsoft's vendor lock-in, but they aren't as deeply entrenched.
Post reply on HN