The past 5 years I only used messenger and miniature wargaming groups. That's all the utility FB provides, and sadly, I don't see the wargaming groups move anywhere else.
Facebook loses users for the first time
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Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#802The only reason I still have a facebook account is because I have logins for other sites tied to it. Haven't personally logged into facebook on purpose since 2016.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#803Earlier 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.
PC != Windows And was never. The Personal-Computer is an original product of International Business Machines (IBM) and not Microsoft. Contrary to most products shipped today it's architecture is open for industry standards and other companies. A huge success for IBM. Microsoft shipped the pre-installed and required operating-system. You can order desktops and laptops without an operating-sytem or Linux from Lenovo (f…
> A huge success for IBM.
A huge success for users because it created the clone market. IBM was never a big player in the PC market after the clones came out.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#804There is something else going on around FB. Almost all activity online has shifted away from the Social Graph to a Content Graph. Almost nobody wants to see what their friends are doing online anymore. In a lot of ways it can be cringey. People just want the latest, catchiest content. TikTok and Youtube are the OGs here, but it's everywhere when you start to look. Twitter timeline changes being an awkward but working…
The reason Facebook is losing, is because they're boxing with two hands behind their back. They're blocked by de facto anti-trust from ever acquiring their relevant competitors.
Acquisitions are a critical instrument for large corporations in terms of competition. TikTok's parent, ByteDance, is not restricted by such problems despite how massive they are, for example.
ByteDance is a $400 billion market cap company that doesn't have to play the game the same way Facebook does despite the fact that they're clearly competing in the same tier of scale now.
And that's not a statement of woe-is-Facebook, nobody should feel bad for Facebook, it's just the fact of the real context they're stuck with and their giant competitor is not.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#805I always find the constant expectation of growth puzzling. and that it is a regular occurrence. For a long time, DELL grew and grew and got bigger. Then they plateaued (for a while) and the investors were mad. There are only so many people in the world who want an FB account. and only so many companies and people who need a DELL computer. Infinite high growth is impossible to sustain. Physically.
Isn’t Dell famously a private company?
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#806My 16yo daughter says FB is for old people and nobody in her age group is using it.
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…
> Once the teens in IG grow into adults
That already happened btw, teens are on TikTok not IG
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#807There is something else going on around FB. Almost all activity online has shifted away from the Social Graph to a Content Graph. Almost nobody wants to see what their friends are doing online anymore. In a lot of ways it can be cringey. People just want the latest, catchiest content. TikTok and Youtube are the OGs here, but it's everywhere when you start to look. Twitter timeline changes being an awkward but working…
Facebook was never ever about the Social Graph. It was always about user profiling and activity/interest monitoring which could be sold to advertisers. The Social Graph was just one tool for that. Coincidentally the profiling is also extremely useful for political leverage and behaviour mod. I'm sure that never occurred to anyone around the company, and the links to operations like AggregateIQ and Cambridge Analytica…
That is right in terms of the business. For the consumer though, the Social Graph did (and does) have real utility. It just has zero business value now as it isn't even useful for the retargeting data.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#808Earlier 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…
> Controlling the VR metaverse... I just don't see it. Too much innovation. Too much invention. Remember FB can always purchase themselves into the market - pick up a few startups and bodge together a consistent product. I think the problem is that VR tech and apps will take too long to arrive to gain any traction with the wider public, before FB needs it. FB needs hundreds of millions/billions of users, VR hasn't pu…
VR is never going to gain the traction FB is betting on. Absolutely no one wants to spend their day inside a headset cut off from the outside world. It's uncomfortable, antisocial, expensive (for now), and just clunky overall.
If anything is going to come of this it's going to be AR, without a doubt. People want to be able to see the world they are in, they don't want to walk into tables, have to disrobe to answer the door, tend to children and so on.
AR adds value everywhere in the real world. AR can blend meetings, add meta information to day-to-day tasks. Think driving, you can now have your maps, speed, collision warnings, and so on in a virtual heads up display.
Even if Meta knocks it out of the park with early AR it's going to be a long time coming and they will still have a trust issue that younger, faster AR startups won't have.
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#809Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Without a stream of new ideas and products (unlike, say, Apple) Apple has no new products in a long time, just overpriced toys that are sold due to good marketing. Most of their money comes from market positioning and closed eco system. Thry were innovative in the past (that first iphone reveal), but for last years they basically are an app store that takes a 30% cut.
Well I am writing this on a new M1 MacBook Pro which is the best laptop computer I have ever owned. And that is because Apple developed their own chips that are an amazing leap forward in power efficiency, so I can have a laptop which I do heavy, CPU intensive work on all day without worrying about the battery.
Do computer games work on this? (Emulation?)
Does it have MS office with macros, or still only a limited version?
Re: Facebook loses users for the first time
#810Earlier 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…
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).
Also, this isn't the first go round with VR. Google Glass launched publicly in 2014 and the original Oculus Rift launched in 2016. I remember tons of discussions around enterprise adoption of VR in 2016-2017 with use cases ranging from immersive marketing campaigns to technicians using them to troubleshoot equipment.