Facebook loses users for the first time • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#911

Post by clbrook » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 6:37 PM UTC

peckrob wrote: post #831

ubermonkey wrote: post #797

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are a lot of people who are in my position, which is "I would absolutely love to ditch FB entirely, but I can't because of ____". The value of ____ might be "seeing pictures of family", or it might be "coordination of/participation in a group that has settled on Facebook as the easiest path" ( But none of these are positive reasons. There is no love of Facebook behind any of them. It's Facebook being to…

Yup, Facebook has their tentacles in so many places that walking away from it is difficult, especially if you are involved in local community activities. My neighborhood exclusively uses Facebook for neighborhood communication. My kid's school PTA exclusively uses Facebook. Most of the local food trucks only post their schedules on Facebook. Since the pandemic started I have been taking the opportunity to go through…

I'm working on another option for some of these things on my platform, Tosslet: https://tosslet.com

Would love some feedback on if you think it would help solve communications from: 1) PTA -> resident 2) Food Trucks -> nearby people

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#912

Post by mathattack » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 6:39 PM UTC

BaldricksGhost wrote: post #782

jmacd wrote: post #774

There 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 is where you find out your highschool friend is super in to a MLM, your uncle has drastic political views you don't share, and that your historical social class and network is largely irrelevant to your life a decade later." This is probably the most accurate description of Facebook I've seen.

Yes. There are some social groups that still use it (“no practice today”) but the novelty has gone and the youngsters have moved on. If the value of the graph increases exponentially with users, each user leaving causes a disproportionate value drop.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#913

Post by nopenopenopeno » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 6:55 PM UTC

drewwwwww wrote: post #898

dionidium wrote: post #863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This probably sounds like a real zinger to a certain kind of young person who moved to Brooklyn and thinks everybody back home is a total loser, but this is not the modal Facebook user, so I'm not sure it matters much.

i mean you can easily write the obverse joke and it has the same overall point - “hey, it’s me, your friend from high school that moved to brooklyn and got a tattoo and thinks he’s better than you. here’s an article about how big yogurt’s assumption you can use a spoon is Ableist” still underscores the fact that facebook is a pipeline to deliver brain poison.

You are making a different point, though.

The original argument was that Facebook is failing to keep up with the times, hence why the back-home losers are still using it while you, the successful urban-dweller, have moved on.

Your argument that Facebook is “a pipeline to deliver brain poison” has a lot more value, even if only because it’s more objective.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#914

Post by zjaffee » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 6:59 PM UTC

jmacd wrote: post #774

There 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…

Honestly the reason I use facebook still is to consume content from people I don't know, facebook groups are the only social thing left on the website, and the rest of it I use for fb marketplace which at least in my area has totally stolen the spotlight from craigslist.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#915

Post by nopenopenopeno » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 7:05 PM UTC

wegs wrote: post #897

dionidium wrote: post #863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This probably sounds like a real zinger to a certain kind of young person who moved to Brooklyn and thinks everybody back home is a total loser, but this is not the modal Facebook user, so I'm not sure it matters much.

I won't argue whether it's accurate, but I think you missed the point. You can swap words around, and get the same for any demographic. The friend's perception of the poster would be "HEY IT'S ME your facebook friend from high school who went to New York and thinks is better than you. Anyway, here's a woke article."

But that wouldn’t support their argument that FB is failing to keep up with the times.

I think it matters largely because I don’t believe that most people just want content. Everyone I speak with who uses FB on a daily basis has made the decision to excuse the habit purely because they are interested in keeping in touch with people. But by excusing that habit, they end up mostly consuming content because that’s what the feed gives them.

I left FB the day their “timeline” stopped supporting chronological sort.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#916

Post by RC_ITR » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 7:08 PM UTC

BaldricksGhost wrote: post #782

jmacd wrote: post #774

There 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 is where you find out your highschool friend is super in to a MLM, your uncle has drastic political views you don't share, and that your historical social class and network is largely irrelevant to your life a decade later." This is probably the most accurate description of Facebook I've seen.

Well, it was always kind of doomed in this way.

When everyone is still actively building their friend list (remember this started for college students) its an amazing product because it brings you closer to people in a new way and allows for curation without investing a ton into AI/ML.

For people who stay in a static social bubbles for long times (e.g., your parents, your friends from HS who didn't move to a coastal city) it's also perfect, because they tend to value content related to their social group more than something new and interesting.

But for the highest value users (e.g., the ones with high-paying knowledge-based jobs and a willingness to try new things) the social graph will never keep up with their lives. Bad content from the edges of the graph will slowly creep into feeds (MLMs being a prime example) and those high-value users will seek out new platforms that conform better to their interests.

Instagram was a brilliant stop-gap, but Mark never saw the writing on the wall about algorithmic content (probably b/c Bytedance had the advantage of cutting its teeth in China first) and is just too far behind to ever really catch up.

So now he's trying to out-future Bytedance with VR (and even got them to burn $1bn on Pico), but unless he has some hard-tech rabbit to pull out of his hat, there's just not anything there.

We may very well be seeing the largest (negative) turn-around story in history since Yahoo! play out in front of our eyes.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#917

Post by parsd » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 7:09 PM UTC

brewdad wrote: post #390

parsd wrote: post #62

I am thankful to these evil companies. Thanks to them - I spend less time online, try to read more books, appreciate real-life conversations, rely on locals for information and news, and let my mind wander.

Careful not to pull something patting yourself on the back like that.

There is nothing facetious or self-flattering here, these things aren't achievements, rather reactions to dependence on some massive facets of modern life, which, as it turns out, are not critical or even necessary.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#918

Post by patchorang » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 7:10 PM UTC

ubermonkey wrote: post #797

jmacd wrote: post #774

There 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…

I think there are a lot of people who are in my position, which is "I would absolutely love to ditch FB entirely, but I can't because of ____". The value of ____ might be "seeing pictures of family", or it might be "coordination of/participation in a group that has settled on Facebook as the easiest path" ( But none of these are positive reasons. There is no love of Facebook behind any of them. It's Facebook being to…

(this was years ago but) I thought this too. I was relatively new to a new city and still building my friend group. I was worried that if I deleted facebook I wouldn't get invited to events, keep in touch with new people I met.

I deleted it anyway. Deleting facebook didn't change my real world in anyway.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#919

Post by hindsightbias » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 7:12 PM UTC

ho_schi wrote: post #658

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.

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…

Lenovo is not high quality compared to mac except at the top of the range. Which is very expensive. Trying to compete in a commodity consumer market where nobody (other than Apple) made money for well over a decade would be a business disaster.

> IBM use and prefer (again) ThinkPads, preinstalled with Linux.

Citation required. They had ~300K apple devices several years ago.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-cio-mac-users-perform-bett...

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#920

Post by Aqueous » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 7:13 PM UTC

_fat_santa wrote: post #813

Aqueous wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the correct thing to do would have been to pivot away from user data and ad targeting as business model and start offering premium, paid services. For instance Facebook could have very easily been Slack for businesses, as well as an enterprise internal social network. Another thing would have been to start offering appliances for private hosting of individual Facebook instances. Finally Facebook could have al…

> For instance Facebook could have very easily been Slack for businesses, as well as an enterprise internal social network They actually have that already. Now it's called "workplace"[1] but before it was called "facebook for work", think Yammer from MS. [1]: https://www.workplace.com/

Ah interesting - I vaguely remember hearing about this, but since I hadn't heard about it in so long I assumed it died.

I don't know what the uptake on this product is, but this specific product might be a case of "Solving a problem no business is having." For instance I think it'd be hard to justify purchasing this service for an enterprise without a compelling use-case. But I certainly think that Facebook has the resources make something that solves a problem that people really do have.

On the other hand, Slack seems to solve a problem pretty well that most businesses have.

Finally, I don't think VR as it currently exists solves a problem any business (or person) truly has beyond sheer entertainment. It remains "cool tech" that has yet to find a solid, non-gaming use case for the average person. This may change but this is why I currently think Meta is in trouble and I'm puzzled as to why Zuckerberg would go all-in on VR.