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Facebook has recently hit 2 billion total users. Given that we have somewhere around 7 billion people on the planet, this seems to be the unbeatable ceiling. Le

by nukeop 9y ago

Facebook has recently hit 2 billion total users. Given that we have somewhere around 7 billion people on the planet, this seems to be the unbeatable ceiling. Let's estimate generously that half of the world's population has access to internet. That gives us 3.5 billion people. Around 750 million of these people are Chinese - they don't, and can't use Facebook. This leaves us with 2,750,000 people - many of which won't be interested in using Facebook, or can't have an account for a multitude of reasons, such as being too young (let's say under 10), or too old (let's say over 75). Clearly there isn't much room for Facebook to grow now. If there's no room to grow, there is nowhere to go but down. It can be therefore predicted that, subtracting bots, the daily users will start dropping regularly very soon, and will keep on dropping as people move away from this platform due to its diminishing popularity, because of network effects.

carlmr 9y ago
For media what they measure their growth in is total time (attention) spent on the platform. Even with 2 billion people signed up being the growth ceiling in terms of number of people. We need to see whether they manage to increase (# people) * (average time spent on Facebook). That number still has a huge upward potential. Declining number of daily visitors is a sign that this growth is negative too though. I don't think that messengers can really replace social media. I don't spend time on a messenger if I'm not messaging someone. Facebook is more about posting something you find interesting, and consuming what other people post (+ adds interspersed). This is a completely different market. Will something replace Facebook? Surely, at some point. But I don't think it will be messengers. It will be another service that makes people feel like they get more of the content they want from their friends.

by nukeop 9y ago

carlmr 9y ago

For media what they measure their growth in is total time (attention) spent on the platform. Even with 2 billion people signed up being the growth ceiling in terms of number of people. We need to see whether they manage to increase (# people) * (average time spent on Facebook). That number still has a huge upward potential. Declining number of daily visitors is a sign that this growth is negative too though. I don't think that messengers can really replace social media. I don't spend time on a messenger if I'm not messaging someone. Facebook is more about posting something you find interesting, and consuming what other people post (+ adds interspersed). This is a completely different market. Will something replace Facebook? Surely, at some point. But I don't think it will be messengers. It will be another service that makes people feel like they get more of the content they want from their friends.