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So you think "the problem" is all the things that Facebook started doing when there were 10 million registered users that grew it to 1.4 billion daily actives?

So you think "the problem" is all the things that Facebook started doing when there were 10 million registered users that grew it to 1.4 billion daily actives? A problem that can be rectified by Facebook, literally 11 years after some of the things you talk about, tweaking news feed weights towards personal posts from friends and other changes to allow users to spend time on the site more efficiently is not a serious problem. And the analysis of photos is spectacular nonsense. First, albums existed very very early in the time you were talking about. Second, the photo uploading features you mention (including hi-res photos) were added at most a billion daily actives ago. Third, building a platform that allowed "a dozen apps" to get created was pretty clearly higher leverage. And finally and most damningly, Instagram doesn't have high-resolution photos or albums and certainly didn't at the time of acquisition: how are those the features that FB had to buy to win users back? Disclosure: I worked there for 8.5 years, including writing Facebook Chat.

gammarator 9y ago
I've been a Facebook user for, oh, almost 14 years now, and adding all those users didn't make the product better for me. But the newsfeed changes mentioned did make it worse. (And maybe those billion people would have liked it better the way it was in 2007.) I'm skeptical that tweaking newsfeed weights will make the people I care about start posting regularly again. I doubt the evaporative cooling is reversable.
oska 9y ago
> Disclosure: I worked there for 8.5 years, including writing Facebook Chat. In my book this is equivalent to saying you worked for Philip Morris for 8.5 years and worked on campaigns to bring in new smokers.
- elgenie 9y ago
  Your book is poorly written: even accepting your premise, I didn’t work on the growth team.
  - mancerayder 9y ago
    I think it's respectable that you gave a disclaimer that you worked there in a thread about Facebook's use value. It's a little unlikely that doing so wouldn't result in an accusation of bias, too. It certainly should not be the basis for an ad hominem against your response. So it brings me to, why mention it?
    - elgenie 9y ago
      Not a disclaimer, but a disclosure :) The reason I mentioned it was because it was rather relevant to my having the incentive to remember the timelines of FB launching various features almost a decade ago.
intelhearts 9y ago
I'm surprised so many people use that website
axaxs 9y ago
Facebook cheated the numbers, so to speak. In every poor SEA country is a Facebook plan, or plan with x data + free Facebook. Stop acting like it was organic growth, it really wasn't and we both know that.
- drewblaisdell 9y ago
  Where can I read more about this?
  - oblio 9y ago
    I'm not from SE Asia, but from Romania. This kind of thing happens everywhere: https://www.vodafone.ro/shop/abonamente-de-date#tab-1 https://www.vodafone.ro/shop/abonamente-de-date#tab-1 -> "Detalii abonament" -> Social Pass: [...] (Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Whatsapp, Pinterest, Twitter, Viber) It's widespread around the world, except for the US, until recently.
  - axaxs 9y ago
    Ah I had never read an article about it, just saw the phone plans and talked to folks when I was there. Minimum googling brought me here - https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-idea-theyre-using-the-internet/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/333313/milliions-of-face...
  - chesimov 9y ago
    Also available in SA. You have to share your facebook data with the mobile company though.
taylorexpander 9y ago
I think this highlights how out of touch you (and the Facebook developers) are. I’ve had a Facebook account since the days of needing a edu email account to register. During my college years Facebook was a very important thing and all of my friends were very active and it was nice being able to see what people were up to and doing. Over time Facebook started optimizing away to whatever it is now. I’ve deleted the Facebook app because it’s simply garbage. My friends don’t really post personal things anymore (most don’t even post anything anymore) and the influx of users and this “retweet” culture has made it so my Facebook feed is essentially spam. Why should I have to bother and waste time to curate what I see? Why should I have to hide so many individual pages? Furthermore, the recent(?) addition of these marketplaces made it just way worse. My news feed activity is constantly telling me about new things for sale here and I just don’t care. I thought I’ve disabled these notifications but apparently I haven’t because they still show up. To be honest I don’t even know how to disable these messages because everything is hidden under 20 layers of options. Not to mention the whole age/generation issue: I’m 30, and my sister is 20. I’m at that age where I don’t really meet a lot of new people anymore, so my friends list has been very stagnant. I really just keep a Facebook profile just to let the occasional old friend/family contact me or find me. My sister and her friends look at Facebook and think it’s something old people use. For her everything is Snapchat.
- resu_nimda 9y ago
  I love how many people are acting like their own personal experiences and gripes are highly representative of some large segment of the userbase. Frankly, I don't think disgruntled HN users are their core demographic. I'm also 30 and registered in 2005. Lots of my friends post frequently. Curating by hiding people I don't want to see takes a negligible amount of time and effort. I've barely even noticed the marketplace. The idea that 30 is "that age" where you don't meet many new people is bizzare to me. I regularly make new friends and the standard way of exchanging contact info is FB.
  - lossolo 9y ago
    Do you have wife and kids? or maybe you are single? I think you are not representative for your demographic. I agree with OP here, it matches my experience and experience of most of my friends and their friends.

gammarator 9y ago

I've been a Facebook user for, oh, almost 14 years now, and adding all those users didn't make the product better for me. But the newsfeed changes mentioned did make it worse. (And maybe those billion people would have liked it better the way it was in 2007.) I'm skeptical that tweaking newsfeed weights will make the people I care about start posting regularly again. I doubt the evaporative cooling is reversable.

oska 9y ago

> Disclosure: I worked there for 8.5 years, including writing Facebook Chat. In my book this is equivalent to saying you worked for Philip Morris for 8.5 years and worked on campaigns to bring in new smokers.

elgenie 9y ago
Your book is poorly written: even accepting your premise, I didn’t work on the growth team.
- mancerayder 9y ago
  I think it's respectable that you gave a disclaimer that you worked there in a thread about Facebook's use value. It's a little unlikely that doing so wouldn't result in an accusation of bias, too. It certainly should not be the basis for an ad hominem against your response. So it brings me to, why mention it?
  - elgenie 9y ago
    Not a disclaimer, but a disclosure :) The reason I mentioned it was because it was rather relevant to my having the incentive to remember the timelines of FB launching various features almost a decade ago.

intelhearts 9y ago

I'm surprised so many people use that website

axaxs 9y ago

Facebook cheated the numbers, so to speak. In every poor SEA country is a Facebook plan, or plan with x data + free Facebook. Stop acting like it was organic growth, it really wasn't and we both know that.

drewblaisdell 9y ago
Where can I read more about this?
- oblio 9y ago
  I'm not from SE Asia, but from Romania. This kind of thing happens everywhere: https://www.vodafone.ro/shop/abonamente-de-date#tab-1 https://www.vodafone.ro/shop/abonamente-de-date#tab-1 -> "Detalii abonament" -> Social Pass: [...] (Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Whatsapp, Pinterest, Twitter, Viber) It's widespread around the world, except for the US, until recently.
- axaxs 9y ago
  Ah I had never read an article about it, just saw the phone plans and talked to folks when I was there. Minimum googling brought me here - https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-idea-theyre-using-the-internet/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/333313/milliions-of-face...
- chesimov 9y ago
  Also available in SA. You have to share your facebook data with the mobile company though.

taylorexpander 9y ago

I think this highlights how out of touch you (and the Facebook developers) are. I’ve had a Facebook account since the days of needing a edu email account to register. During my college years Facebook was a very important thing and all of my friends were very active and it was nice being able to see what people were up to and doing. Over time Facebook started optimizing away to whatever it is now. I’ve deleted the Facebook app because it’s simply garbage. My friends don’t really post personal things anymore (most don’t even post anything anymore) and the influx of users and this “retweet” culture has made it so my Facebook feed is essentially spam. Why should I have to bother and waste time to curate what I see? Why should I have to hide so many individual pages? Furthermore, the recent(?) addition of these marketplaces made it just way worse. My news feed activity is constantly telling me about new things for sale here and I just don’t care. I thought I’ve disabled these notifications but apparently I haven’t because they still show up. To be honest I don’t even know how to disable these messages because everything is hidden under 20 layers of options. Not to mention the whole age/generation issue: I’m 30, and my sister is 20. I’m at that age where I don’t really meet a lot of new people anymore, so my friends list has been very stagnant. I really just keep a Facebook profile just to let the occasional old friend/family contact me or find me. My sister and her friends look at Facebook and think it’s something old people use. For her everything is Snapchat.

resu_nimda 9y ago
I love how many people are acting like their own personal experiences and gripes are highly representative of some large segment of the userbase. Frankly, I don't think disgruntled HN users are their core demographic. I'm also 30 and registered in 2005. Lots of my friends post frequently. Curating by hiding people I don't want to see takes a negligible amount of time and effort. I've barely even noticed the marketplace. The idea that 30 is "that age" where you don't meet many new people is bizzare to me. I regularly make new friends and the standard way of exchanging contact info is FB.
- lossolo 9y ago
  Do you have wife and kids? or maybe you are single? I think you are not representative for your demographic. I agree with OP here, it matches my experience and experience of most of my friends and their friends.