When these articles say "losing millions of users" they mean losing millions of active users, which in the case of Facebook is the sum of all new and returning

When these articles say "losing millions of users" they mean losing millions of active users, which in the case of Facebook is the sum of all new and returning users over a given time period. They're not talking about registered users. Losing notifications hurts both your new user growthand your retention, so you see a reduction in active users. It remains to be seen whether these apps are just settling to a new plateu of activity or if they're actually dying.