Facebook Is Dying

What does Web3 have to do with anything?

Facebook are losing because of TikTok, not some Web3 scam.

I think Facebook has never treated its users with respect, has always treated smaller tech companies with contempt, and has never treated society with respect.

Being ruthless can get you a long way, but making enemies of everyone along the way eventually catches up with you.

No one likes Facebook. Ironic for the inventor of the Like button.

Well, TikTok is kind of eating FB lunch but to be fair to Facebook, TikTok is subsidized by the Chinese regime which by the way keeps FB and other US tech companies from operating in the Chinese market. This, to me, is so unfair. If I ever agree with former president Donald Trump, it is precisely on this very issue. Chinese firms have it too easy in the US, while our tech companies are kept from competing in China.

But Be that as it may, FB has other issues that have nothing to do with any competitor.They decided to pivot and pursue the Metaverse sinking more than $10 Billion into it in 2021 thus eating into their profits big time. This is the biggest reason why they missed their number and subsequently punished by the impatient Wall Street

Actually I’ve been saying this for quite a few years now, and people were ditching me.
I don’t use it anymore for my personal activities (I don’t have the app on my phone anymore, either), I just log into business manger for my clients. And that’s it. I think this feeling is shared with many others.
I’m not saying that FB will die tomorrow, but I feel your sentiment about its decline.
I personally think the main reason it is still alive is because if you want to make ads on Instagram (which is still trending up), you must walk the Zuck path.
Despite the fact it had also become one of the worst platform to spend money on ads (bad UI and UX, bugs, very high cpc, crowded), many people still use it to generate leads. And I don’t know why as there are so many alternatives out there.
There’s no surprise to me they changed to Meta, as they maybe already did spot this trend and they are trying to overcome it… you know, you rebrand for two main reasons: you have been acquired and who bought you wants its name on your brand, or things are not going so well and you just need a refresh to start over.
I don’t want to make prophecies, but you know, they also went all-in with this web3 and metaverse thing, which IMHO is a very very hyped bubble. And you know what happens when you go all-in with a bubble…

I'm actually not too surprised about this! A lot of the discussion around Facebook's "monopolistic" dominance centers on how they leverage their network effects as a huge advantage.

But at a certain size, network effects become something of a liability. Specifically: when a social networking platform gets big enough, it is forced to horizontalize: to address the needs of a large number of individual communities, e.g. high school kids, self-published authors, digital marketers, dog walkers, etc. ad infinitum. It's impossible to do this effectively — the best option is create a set of lukewarm features that do a mediocre job of addressing every niche.

Consequently, that horizontalizing platform becomes vulnerable to smaller rival platforms that are still free to verticalize, to address the specific needs of all of those individual communities with laser focus and faster feedback loops.

Through this lens it's a little easier to see why Facebook moved so quickly to acquire Instagram years ago when it began to peel away younger demographics from Facebook itself.

The transition to the metaverse can't come fast enough, right? ;)

I remember being 12 and asking my parents "Can I make a facebook account yet"? It was such a milestone and the "cool" thing to do back then. Nowadays, I'm sure kids are asking "Can I make a TikTok"?

That's my typical metric for determining which social media platform is "relevant" right now.

Facebook (the website) will definitely stay around. Even if it's not "cool" for the kids there's other niches it can fill. Plus it already has enormous network effects.

Facebook is just boring af these days. It used to be a place where I could see what my friends were enjoying, which events they were attending etc. Now it's just a compilation of news articles and the same old generic ads.
Just like a lot of other websites, it starts off as a new culture, but it slowly but surely shifts into a corporate kinda thing.

Regarding Web3, those developments can definitely be a further threat to FB. A DAO that is community controlled certainly has the potential to upset a dictatorship like FB. That being said, chances are small, because a behemoth like FB should have no problem to get into "web 3" related things as well.

Facebook isn't going away anytime soon. They've got deep pockets. They had bad quarters before. They have been punished by hedge funds before. It will get back up.

Yes, they lost a few users, so what? They still have market dominance in what they do.

People use Facebook and Instagram to connect with brands. That has value. A shit ton of it.

A lot of businesses would not exist if it wasn't for Facebook and Instagram.

They are losing their way with this whole metaverse crap. But I'm pretty sure they'll figure something out.

Worst case they will make acquisitions, move to search and compete with Google on that front or whatever is needed to remain relevant.

Heck look at Microsoft when Satya Nadella took the reins, that company was moving nowhere fast. It pivoted and became a Cloud juggernaut.

Facebook can do the same.

It is really expected. There are so many alternatives and the FB brand is really not helping it at all. I haven't used FB in years :O

Total user base fell meaning people remove their accounts? This is probably due to their brand image ... I think most people would have just left the account idle otherwise.

I don't think people are less interested in social media, we just hang in different corners of the Internet through different ways: Slack, Circle, Discord, Twitter etc.

It is exciting to see what's next :)

Everyone just reacts to outrage and news and it seems like there is a failure to acknowledge that the CEOs in question know way more about the trends of the industry than a bad week on Wall Street filled with speculation over data that the company is well aware of.

Facebook the product we grew up on may be dying, but the company has already pivoted and rebranded. They saw this coming long ago and are a step ahead. It’s a bit unreasonable to think one company can sustain 3/8 of the world’s population as active users.

To be honest, Facebook sucks anyway. So the fact that its dying isn't too bad for me. At least its not some other company that at least keeps up with time well like Google. Googles always criticized for tracking you and not that its ok but how else would they have all these nice free things like Google Drive, (Yes, Twayobiz isn't trying to "replace" products like Google Drive, its just trying to create a more customizable option) YouTube, or even simply Google search. And also tons of other companies track you too for the same reason, marketing.

I would say it's too soon and it's not interesting enough for most people. It might be more successful if it had been done by gaming company. Also I would add the markets aren't looking great at the moment.

Treat your users and customers like garbage and they will eventually go elsewhere 🤷🏻‍♂️

As a developer, I find working with Facebook's developer tools very frustrating and potentially not worth it. For example, Google Login, a few clicks and I'm done implementing that. Facebook? Nah, must create an Facebook "app" and so much other hassle just for a Login button. I'm bored with Facebook as a user and as a developer.

As for other social platforms, one main difference is the first user experience. Tiktok, Twitter, Snapchat are more "open" where you can see the world. When you first sign up to Facebook you see an empty void of nothing.

Massively agree with it not being 'cool' anymore - don't think that social media is going away anytime soon as Twitter and even LinkedIn have showed with their user growth in the last couple of years but just think Facebook's fairly generic value prop (sharing generic life updates & getting ads thrown in your face every 4 posts) isn't as scalable among the user base as the thoughtful and informative content people prepare on Twitter or Reddit, for example.

Ben Thompson’s take on this, afaict, is that 1million fewer users is a drop in the ocean when you have almost 3 billion MAU.
The reason they’ve taken a bath financially is due to the Apple ATT privacy circlejerk. Advertisers have moved to Apple - what a shock, and elsewhere.. the change to Meta is also an execution distraction internally and comes at a time when they’re being squeezed from all sides. Not ideal, but largely irrelevant. Web3 has nothing to do with anything in the real world and TikTok is fun for the under 40 crowd. But everyone over 40 who’s not on the “Facebook is evil bandwagon” is still happy with their Facebook Feed and won’t be taking to snap or ticktok anytime soon. 😐

fb has it's days counted... is pure filth.

The current State of the Facebook Company is the portrait of people's changing interests, people are wanting to be freer, less monopolized, the future will be decentralized.

Pretty wild to see. It lost $200B in market value in one day. The old FB playbook would've been to acquire some companies to stem the bleeding but now it's facing such stiff anti-trust scrutiny it can't.

Do you think TikTok is largely driving this decline in users and ad buying?