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Facebook loses users for the first time

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#631

Post by AussieWog93 »

busymom0 wrote: post #617
netcan wrote: post #578

Earlier 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 think Microsoft is also almost an essential product company. You can either get a PC or a Mac. Or Linux but even that requires getting a PC anyway. Chromebook market is still tiny.

Apparently Chromebooks outsold Macbooks in 2020, and their market share only seems to be increasing:

https://www.geekwire.com/2021/chromebooks-outsold-macs-world...

(That said, ChromeOS still makes up a much smaller percentage of active installations, as Google don't have the legacy hardware base that Apple and Microsoft do)

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#632

Post by jhanschoo »

brtkdotse wrote: post #557
FullyFunctional wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone remember that Next Big Thing was supposed to be 3D TVs? I think VR is similarly misguided (ie, will never go mainstream but will have a healthy niche).

A non-trivial percentage of the population get motion sickness easily. VR is a non-starter for them.

I think this is something that can be solved with more investment into electronics, alternative optics and display (e.g. Google-glass style display), as well as UX research.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#633

Post by netcan »

davedx wrote: post #521
randomsearch wrote: post #504

This 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…

I agree with most of what you wrote up to this point: > He's a super smart and prescient thinker, so he can see VR is a good play He made a school yearbook on the internet and copied some features from existing social networks like MySpace. Facebook was just in the right place at the right time and executed well. The jury is very much still out on whether "VR is a good play", too. It might turn out to be a gigantic o…

>>He made a school yearbook on the internet and copied some features from existing social networks like MySpace. Facebook was just in the right place...

Well. That's the key point. Lots of people did social networks. Several had a lot if success with them. Remember circa 2007? FB was one of many. Zuck made a social network that (a) got and stayed popular (b) made no way and (c) successfully changed user behaviour. Before FB, social media was mostly anonymous and targeted at young, fringe or techno-elite online culture. FB are mass market.

I agree that VR is yet to be seen, and that fb's ability to execute is dubious. But, Zuck is more capable than most/all CEOs of social media seen this far.

Twitter us more if a lucky shot.

It remains true though that social media, generally, is not technically demanding. That said, the demands of scale complicate that. Look at Amazon and aws.

There aren't many fb-scale tech companies out there. It's not competition in an infinite field. It's competition in a field of one.. or perhaps three. JPMorgan or Berkshire Hathaway aren't going to beat them at this game. If it's a matter of beating other mega scale tech shops, it may be just a matter of executing better than not executing.

Competition at the ground floor (say series A) is brutal. Even if you're brilliant, you probably need a great strategy and greater luck. Competition at the mid range is meaningful. A Zara, Boots or OnePlus or whatnot still need to beat other players. At the FB/google level... there just aren't enough players. They don't necessarily compete at all, against other players. Products can succeed or fail, but it's not about head to head abilities. Where competition actually exists, like azure/aws, at best it's usually a field of 2 or 6 possible competitors with a chance of outside disruption. They're not in a "beat restaurant in town" game.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#634

Post by zmmmmm »

The upside that I hope to see from this is that the faster Facebook loses its shine and becomes a negatively viewed legacy product on a downward trajectory, the more likely Meta is to make good on relaxing the Facebook account requirement for Oculus.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#635

Post by garbagetime »

pwdisswordfish9 wrote: post #604
sabarn01 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen zero hate speech, but I mostly use FB to share pictures of my kids.

Shame on you then for violating their privacy.

This seems more of a cultural thing than an obviously morally terrible act.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#636

Post by mkolodny »

randomsearch wrote: post #504

This 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…

Facebook Marketplace is pretty awesome. I see it as a potential Amazon competitor.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#637

Post by zmmmmm »

brtkdotse wrote: post #557
FullyFunctional wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone remember that Next Big Thing was supposed to be 3D TVs? I think VR is similarly misguided (ie, will never go mainstream but will have a healthy niche).

A non-trivial percentage of the population get motion sickness easily. VR is a non-starter for them.

I'd be curious what that percentage is now. The tech has improved enormously, as have developers understanding of what to avoid software-wise. Not a single person (dozens) I have shared my Quest with had this problem.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#638

Post by netcan »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #631
busymom0 wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Microsoft is also almost an essential product company. You can either get a PC or a Mac. Or Linux but even that requires getting a PC anyway. Chromebook market is still tiny.

Apparently Chromebooks outsold Macbooks in 2020, and their market share only seems to be increasing: https://www.geekwire.com/2021/chromebooks-outsold-macs-world... (That said, ChromeOS still makes up a much smaller percentage of active installations, as Google don't have the legacy hardware base that Apple and Microsoft do)

In some sense this demonstrates a point about key markets. Chromebooks have market share that's not important, beyond sales volume for a variety of reasons. It's a secondary machine, a non-work machine, a machine for the unsavy, etc. People who don't need much from the laptop. It has few apps, and the ecosystem isn't that important. Companies don't run on it. Companies don't even really run on Google docs very often. These products remain non essentials with little to no lock-in.

You could argue that kindle is a computer too, but it doesn't really matter either way.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#639

Post by mad182 »

busymom0 wrote: post #618
davedx wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of what you wrote up to this point: > He's a super smart and prescient thinker, so he can see VR is a good play He made a school yearbook on the internet and copied some features from existing social networks like MySpace. Facebook was just in the right place at the right time and executed well. The jury is very much still out on whether "VR is a good play", too. It might turn out to be a gigantic o…

I personally don't think VR is a good play. Personally, I just can't binge on anything with VR. It's just not comfortable. But maybe we haven't had enough hardware innovation yet.

I have the same experience. I have tried my friends VR set a few times and another one at a work party, and overall it was pretty underwhelming. Uncomfortable, a bit nausea inducing and nothing particularly impressive. Kind of cool to try out, but not something I would want to use every day or pay for. At the current state I don't see what's the fuss about.

Also VR as some kind of social networking replacement seems unlikely to me because huge par of the time people spend on social networks is not while sitting at home dedicating time to this activity. Most people are not going to lug around VR headset everywhere they go.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#640

Post by Falkon1313 »

yason wrote: post #601
randomsearch wrote: post #504

This 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. I hope they hadn't even tried. Initially, Facebook offered lots of value in the early years in the form that users were actually able to follow their friends' lives and stay connected. You had a bunch of friends and you would see a mostly chronological list of what they had posted that you read until you recognized something you had already seen. If they had kept it th…

I agree. Adding Messenger, groups, and events were good moves, but they ruined the feed so badly it soured the whole thing. Should've stuck to being social networking instead of trying to be whatever the feed is supposed to be now.

They could've easily expanded into more social features, longer-form stuff like Livejournal, personal creative stuff like Deviantart, and personal creative/selling like Etsy and Bandcamp and print-on-demand books, etc.

Another killer feature they flopped on was personas. Nobody really wants their entire extended family, current former and potential coworkers and bosses, customers, preacher, old friends, romantic interests, drug dealer, and fetish group all hanging out together in the same room talking. So people made separate accounts and different names but Facebook continually fought hard against that very basic nature of human social networking.

Instead of any social-networking improvements to their core, they just removed all the value from the feed. And then bought out another messenger and another place to post photos, both of which they already had. Then a halfhearted videos thing and now a VR Second Life clone.

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