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I hope I'm wrong but I think this in no way bringing facebook down. Keeping in touch with friends & family is too important to ditch entirely, and having every
by d--b 9y ago
I hope I'm wrong but I think this in no way bringing facebook down.
Keeping in touch with friends & family is too important to ditch entirely, and having everyone switch to a different platform is very hard. That said, my whole extended family uses whats app nowadays...
- blindwatchmaker 9y agoWhatsapp is also owned by facebook.
- matte_black 9y agoThe reason I still invest in Facebook as a company is because of their ownership in these other platforms. I think the classic site’s days are numbered but it will be a while before it does a complete shutdown, if ever. At that point Facebook might decide to just completely redesign it into something different and recapture the lost audience.
- cm2187 9y agoI'd argue a lot if not probably the majority of users of Facebook are read only. What matters is really whether the minority of users who actively post are leaving or not. These are the most affected by privacy concerns. Once enough of them do, the platform dries out and its end will accelerate.
- ktta 9y ago>What matters is really whether the minority of users who actively post are leaving or not. I see it differently. Looking at it from a stats perspective, people who just login and don't scroll are also pretty valuable for Facebook since they're still come under the DAU and MAU numbers. They're counted for the ad impressions, and subsequently ad revenue. Even though Facebook has prioritized friends' posts, bulk of the content (even though it can be not the most important) I think for most people is by pages and companies. Who I don't think are going to change in any way after this event.
- vermilingua 9y agoObviously passive users are important for FB's bottom line, but I think what GP is saying is that if all the active users leave (even if media companies/pages don't, just the friends who post), it will cause an exodus of passive users.
- ktta 9y agoSure, if all will. But most won't, and that won't change things. The 'enough' in GP's comment should pretty much be 80%+, which we all know won't happen. It's still a great communication tool without the users who post though.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mayankkaizen 9y agoIn my case, most of my friends have no FB account or they have deactivated the account long ago. Few other have accounts but they practically never posted anything. Some of my cousins/colleagues used to be active but now they have got fed up of FB. Amusingly, none of them ditched FB because 'Oh FB is evil mass surveillance system'. What I sense is people are getting fed up with FB. Sadly, it is Whatsapp which has taken the place of FB.
- gt_ 9y agoThat’s a good point. Are you just assuming the majority of users are read-only or is that informed by some other source? I would probably assume something similar as far as posts and less for comments, but as far as just liking things, I would assume almost everybody who logs in does that on a regular basis. They probably do it a lot less but logging in and browsing but not liking anything seems a little uncanny to me. I mean it makes sense if you just don’t see anything you like but that doesn’t seem like a likely habit to sustain itself.
- cm2187 9y agoMy own personal experience of seeing the majority of the posts in my feed coming from a minority of my contacts. And a lot of people use facebook just to keep track of what distant relatives and acquaintances have become, not because they feel like sharing everything in their life with the world.
- nukeop 9y agoThis is a false dichotomy, Facebook is in no way required or even useful to keep in touch with anyone.
- bogomipz 9y agoIndeed, people kept in touch with friends and family just fine before Facebook. And people who don't use it now also manage to keep in touch with people they care about just fine.
- virgilp 9y agoThis says nothing. People shopped online before Amazon; watched movies before Netflix, and used smartphones before Apple started making them
- musage 9y agoNone of those are essential either. Where you have a choice you have responsibility. If people prefer supposed convenience, let them state it as such, but let nobody claim they have no choice.
- bogomipz 9y agoYou comment is ambiguous to the point of being meaningless. As such I would say your own comment says nothing. The three things you listed are pure technology. Staying in touch with people you care about and making time to do so is not an inherently technological undertaking.
- jimmy1 9y agoThis says a lot. I miss the movies sometimes (just wish they were a bit cheaper) and binge watching is horrible for your health (not just physically but mentally as well -- teaches you how to be an addict). Amazon, while convenient, has destroyed an entire economic subsystem in it's wake and destroyed a way of life that was more communal and social to one that is more isolated and reclusive. Finally, people more and more these days are trying to find ways to detach from their smartphones (I think your comment wrongly assumes Apple "created" the smartphone -- they did not)
- lettergram 9y agoI mean, I just went and installed signal on my whole families phones one druken evening (I have 7 sets of aunt's and uncle's, no small feat). Now we communicate all through signal and they didn't even realize it helped them lol Then all the sudden a week or so ago they freaked out and I was like - no worries, remember that one time I switched your text messages? My family primarily communicates in texts, phone calls, and in person. So this was relatively easy, myself and the other half the family either stopped using Facebook years ago, or never used it in the first place. Easy really, and not necessary
- sgc 9y agoThis is the only real demise of fb or any other large player. Another service catches on that is not directly competitive, and then adds features to gradually replace the incumbent.
- ftlio 9y agoFacebook owns Whats App. It's one of the first thing they acquired with IPO money.
- magic_beans 9y agoThen what on earth was the WhatsApp CEO thinking when he told people to abandon Facebook?
- zentiggr 9y agoHe wised up? Many former FB execs and top employees have started speaking out, having major changes of opinion, against what they created.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoGuilty that he'd knowingly sold everyone on WhatsApp out to Facebook?
- andrepd 9y agoEx-CEO. He cashed out already, so he can say whatever he wants.
- VirgilShelton 9y agoGood thing Facebook owns WhatsApp and Instagram. They’ll be fine. Losing a few million won’t hurt since they have > 1 Billion users
- dawnerd 9y agoThey'll eventually gain those users back anyways and make the loses back when they have a strong 4th quarter.
- rtpg 9y agoalso just FB Messenger. I use Messenger almost exclusively to talk to friends in my area. We have other IM options in theory, but end up reaching for Messenger because of how well it works.
- wingworks 9y agoNot to mention most of my non-tech friends have no idea something even just happened with Facebook.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoWhatsApp is owned by Facebook, I assume they share all the data they wish to.
- wolfgke 9y ago> Keeping in touch with friends & family is too important to ditch entirely, and having everyone switch to a different platform is very hard. I have good friends who would rather drop contact entirely than having to have an account on website that is not at least deeply privacy-conscious. In this sense I would rather claim that whether this statement holds or not strongly depends on the kinds of persons that your social circle contains.
- haywirez 9y agoI haven't logged in for about five-six months now, and FB started bothering my friends to hit me up on messenger to lure me back in.
- paulie_a 9y agoFacebook has some really cult like behavior reinforcement: "you have posted to data in a row and people are responding" It's like they are going out of their way to be creepy at this point.