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I think they lost users much much earlier. It's just that most users they lost went from "I use Facebook" to "I don't want to use Facebook, but kinds still hav

I think they lost users much much earlier. It's just that most users they lost went from "I use Facebook" to "I don't want to use Facebook, but kinds still have to" (because friends, family etc.). All people below 40y I know which have Facebook fall more or less in the second category...

b0afc375b5 5y ago
Facebook replaced sms/voicecall with family. If it wasn't for that I'd have already deleted my account years ago.
- aylons 5y ago
  You may keep your messenger account while extinguishing your profile and all.
frob 5y ago
I fall into a 3rd category: I used to log into FB once a month or so to check in. For some reason, they decided I was a fake account (despite working for them for 4.5 years) and asked for my ID. The resolution on my 10-year-old MBP was too low for FB's contractors so they rejected my ID 3 times and I seem to now be locked out of my account indefinitely. Definitely in the top 10 best thing to ever happen to me.
- cipheredStones 5y ago
  Given how rarely you were using it before, I'm surprised you rate the impact so highly - how come?
  - vmception 5y ago
    Closure is powerful
    - frob 5y ago
      Bingo. I'm done. It's over. No matter how much I want to hop on and rage about the current issue of the day, I just can't and it's not worth pinging my former teammates there for the Nth time trying to fix it.
- rhacker 5y ago
  > despite working for them for 4.5 years wow.
  - afavour 5y ago
    Eh, I'd be more surprised/concerned if the Facebook user table had a special flag for whether someone was or ever had been an employee.
    - fire 5y ago
      hmm, don't they require you to use your personal facebook account to log into their facebook for work system as an employee? ( Am I just misremembering? )
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - makeitdouble 5y ago
      That kind of flag can be useful to let test users and internal dev accounts get specific unreleased features or behaviors. There are other ways to deal with specific users, but flagging accounts doesn't seem outlandish to me.
    - enedil 5y ago
      Facebook requires employees to provide their personal account, which will be used throughout the work.
- Lamad123 5y ago
  I was locked out of amazon almost a year ago because of some security issue blah blah!!! I never tried to unlock the account and I am OK living in a world where I don't need to deal with that monster!
  - websap 5y ago
    You wait for a week for items to get delivered and pay for expedited shipping each time? What a wonderful world!
adewinter 5y ago
There's even a metric for that: Daily Active Users. I bet Facebook does not publish that number (or the historical values for it). I bet that number has been going down lately, at least for North American users. There's a reason they changed their name.
- wraptile 5y ago
  That also would be skewed imho. I use messenger to communicate with my family and I do click on facebook links they sends me but that's about it - am I an active user?
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    Sounds like you're actively using Facebook's products, so I'd assume so.
- batiudrami 5y ago
  This article is literally about their daily active users number dropping.
  - romeros 5y ago
    HN Users typically read the heading and jump to the comment section..
    - pjerem 5y ago
      Well, ${WEBSITE_NAME} users also typically read the heading and jump to the comment section..
      - spookthesunset 5y ago
        True for literally every site ever. Some people read the article and never comment. Some read the headline and always comment. I’m in the later.
    - 5y ago
raverbashing 5y ago
I also wouldn't be surprised if FB is fudging those numbers and it's declining even with their fudging. After inflating the video play numbers I don't put anything past FB.
dredmorbius 5y ago
North American users (US & Canada) were reported to show declines at least as early as 2019, see: https://hypebeast.com/2019/3/facebook-user-base-decline https://hypebeast.com/2019/3/facebook-user-base-decline WaPo links to US declines as early as 2018: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/10/30/facebook-revenue-rises-less-than-expected-user-growth-stagnates/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/10/30/faceboo... The big news here is a worldwide decline, which shows a rather larger weakness.
busymom0 5y ago
I know too many of my friends only used FB because of the events feature. However during COVID, that usage dropped too.

b0afc375b5 5y ago

Facebook replaced sms/voicecall with family. If it wasn't for that I'd have already deleted my account years ago.

aylons 5y ago
You may keep your messenger account while extinguishing your profile and all.

frob 5y ago

I fall into a 3rd category: I used to log into FB once a month or so to check in. For some reason, they decided I was a fake account (despite working for them for 4.5 years) and asked for my ID. The resolution on my 10-year-old MBP was too low for FB's contractors so they rejected my ID 3 times and I seem to now be locked out of my account indefinitely. Definitely in the top 10 best thing to ever happen to me.

cipheredStones 5y ago
Given how rarely you were using it before, I'm surprised you rate the impact so highly - how come?
- vmception 5y ago
  Closure is powerful
  - frob 5y ago
    Bingo. I'm done. It's over. No matter how much I want to hop on and rage about the current issue of the day, I just can't and it's not worth pinging my former teammates there for the Nth time trying to fix it.
rhacker 5y ago
> despite working for them for 4.5 years wow.
- afavour 5y ago
  Eh, I'd be more surprised/concerned if the Facebook user table had a special flag for whether someone was or ever had been an employee.
  - fire 5y ago
    hmm, don't they require you to use your personal facebook account to log into their facebook for work system as an employee? ( Am I just misremembering? )
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    That kind of flag can be useful to let test users and internal dev accounts get specific unreleased features or behaviors. There are other ways to deal with specific users, but flagging accounts doesn't seem outlandish to me.
  - enedil 5y ago
    Facebook requires employees to provide their personal account, which will be used throughout the work.
Lamad123 5y ago
I was locked out of amazon almost a year ago because of some security issue blah blah!!! I never tried to unlock the account and I am OK living in a world where I don't need to deal with that monster!
- websap 5y ago
  You wait for a week for items to get delivered and pay for expedited shipping each time? What a wonderful world!

adewinter 5y ago

There's even a metric for that: Daily Active Users. I bet Facebook does not publish that number (or the historical values for it). I bet that number has been going down lately, at least for North American users. There's a reason they changed their name.

wraptile 5y ago
That also would be skewed imho. I use messenger to communicate with my family and I do click on facebook links they sends me but that's about it - am I an active user?
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Sounds like you're actively using Facebook's products, so I'd assume so.
batiudrami 5y ago
This article is literally about their daily active users number dropping.
- romeros 5y ago
  HN Users typically read the heading and jump to the comment section..
  - pjerem 5y ago
    Well, ${WEBSITE_NAME} users also typically read the heading and jump to the comment section..
    - spookthesunset 5y ago
      True for literally every site ever. Some people read the article and never comment. Some read the headline and always comment. I’m in the later.
  - 5y ago

raverbashing 5y ago

I also wouldn't be surprised if FB is fudging those numbers and it's declining even with their fudging. After inflating the video play numbers I don't put anything past FB.

dredmorbius 5y ago

North American users (US & Canada) were reported to show declines at least as early as 2019, see: https://hypebeast.com/2019/3/facebook-user-base-decline https://hypebeast.com/2019/3/facebook-user-base-decline WaPo links to US declines as early as 2018: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/10/30/facebook-revenue-rises-less-than-expected-user-growth-stagnates/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/10/30/faceboo... The big news here is a worldwide decline, which shows a rather larger weakness.

busymom0 5y ago

I know too many of my friends only used FB because of the events feature. However during COVID, that usage dropped too.