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Ask HN: Is Facebook Dying?

• 29athrowaway 5y ago
  Facebook is full of MLM shit and found dogs.
• blinded 5y ago
  Yes, but Facebook marketplace is lit.
  • givemeethekeys 5y ago
    Facebook marketplace is terrible. It makes you look at just as many scams and ads as legitimate ads for what you need.
    • blinded 5y ago
      you just gotta get the filters right
  • enos_feedler 5y ago
    Yes and facebook will sustain itself by providing these other “jobs to be done”. Connecting people to sell your stuff. Connecting people to date. Connecting people to find a good babysitter/dogsitter in the neighborhood. And, its the only way to reach your parents. Not going anywhere (and i hate this)
  • thaway2839 5y ago
    That's another thing Instagram might replace though. It really feels Instagram is the new Facebook, which is great for me, because there is no expectation to be on Instagram within my circles so I can avoid social media, and pseudonymously follow the couple of Insta accounts I do like.
  • kingofboom 5y ago
    I would guess that monetizing marketplace to a level that moves the needle on Meta's earning will be nearly impossible. I would be very surprised if it ever goes anywhere. I'm surprised it exists at all tbh.
  • 29athrowaway 5y ago
    It is mostly all stolo.
  • sunflowerfly 5y ago
    In our rural area FB marketplace is the place to buy things. They certainly have the network effect. However, I cannot think of a single market that is more user hostile. Functional searches are impossible, as it feeds you what it thinks you want.
• PaulHoule 5y ago
  Yes
• jstx1 5y ago
  - at the end of last year they recorded a decrease in users for the first time - their users are about a quarter of the world's population; at that scale even a downward trajectory will take ages and it will likely stabilisie at some point - there's many people who aren't like you out there in the world, there are more people like you on HN so it will be easier to find similar opinions to yours
  • namecheapTA 5y ago
    It seems like myspace and digg died pretty fast, so it's definitely possible.
    • samirelanduk 5y ago
      They both had a direct competitor that had been stalking them for years before implosion, and neither were as well established or well funded as Meta/Facebook.
    • xeromal 5y ago
      For sure. That was a pretty different era though! There was still uncertainty about who would win, but Facebook is the Google of social media networks at this point. There is an incredible amount of resistance to uproot them.
      • hedora 5y ago
        Is google really that sticky in 2022? Android is bleeding market share, maps and search are undifferentiated. They have an ad network and an office suite, but the network effects of those last two are middling, at best. Sure, there's switching inertia, but there's no "killer app" that consumers lose by leaving the google ecosystem. (Except YouTube, I guess.)
        • otherotherchris 5y ago
          Android is bleeding marketshare to whom? PalmOS? Windows Mobile? Outside of the Great Firewall they dominate everything. Apple's IOS is shrinking globally due to Apple chasing premium customers and pricing itself out of the market. An iPhone SE is $399 after discounting, the average selling price for a smartphone outside the US is about $90. The iPhone 13 is a truly fantastic product, state of the art with an SOC that is years ahead of the competition. I'm truly privileged not only to own one, but to live in a country where the average man on the street can also afford to buy one for every member of his family. But I'm part of a tiny minority.
• krembanan 5y ago
  Just look at Facebooks last quarterly results and guidance. When the company itself tells investors it's dying, it probably is.
  • Eric_WVGG 5y ago
    He specified Facebook the property, not Meta the company. I have been told by acquaintances within the company that Facebook is considered a legacy product. IMO the corporate rebranding was canny. But I also have little/no faith that their internal bureaucracy will be able to pull off "the metaverse." Their only hope is pulling off more Instagram-style acquisitions.
    • Kye 5y ago
      Their metaverse has to contend with the fact that a bored talking cat's weekend projects keep outdoing anything they come up with. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpSEtKnU_vw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpSEtKnU_vw
  • mydogcanpurr 5y ago
    > Just look at Facebooks last quarterly results and guidance. https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2022/Meta-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2021-Results/default.aspx https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/... https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680122000018/fb-20211231.htm https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/0001... They look really good to me actually
• allthecybers 5y ago
  We can only hope. I hear AARP has a hot new social network for most of the demographic on Facebook.
  • toomuchtodo 5y ago
    I’m actually very excited to see AARP’s social network go live. It’ll be run by a non profit specifically for the cohort that’ll be using it, which better aligns the org’s incentives with that of its users. Yet another effort in clawing back power and audience from Big Tech. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/aarp-backed-social-network-looks-to-lure-older-users-from-facebook/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/aarp-backed-soci... https://community.seniorplanet.org/ https://community.seniorplanet.org/ “The social network was developed by an AARP affiliate, Older Adults Technology Services. OATS started out giving computer classes to older folks in New York City and has expanded its physical footprint over the years. During the pandemic, those classes moved online, and Senior Planet Community grew from that transition.” “Besides its focus on the 50-plus set, Senior Planet Community stands apart from Facebook in that it’s not commercial. The site has no advertising or membership fees. Unless the cost to run the site grows substantially, that probably won’t present much of a problem. AARP isn’t saying how much it has put into Senior Planet Community, but the organization is famously well-capitalized, with $2.3 billion in net assets and $1.7 billion in revenue in 2020.” (disclosure: AARP member)
    • MerelyMortal 5y ago
      I'm in my 30s, and wanted to create an account out of curiousity (and maybe because there might be good discussions that I would be interested in). The sign-up page asks for your birthdate, and then says the community is exclusively for people over 50. I have more friends over 50 than under 50 lol.
      • otherotherchris 5y ago
        I'm in my 30's and am in the same boat. A lot of my older colleagues and mentors are over 50 and won't use this service because half their network is excluded. The most toxic people on Nextdoor and Facebook are over 60, are just a little bit racist as old people are, and haven't learned the social norms of internet use. Moderation is going to be a very expensive exercise for them if they don't want the site to turn full neo-nazi like Parler did seemingly overnight.
• stefs 5y ago
  well - my feed is literally dying. i've got an "oops, something went wrong" error message (instead of the feed) for months, the console is full of errors. only news i get are from notifications.
  • ceedan 5y ago
    Do you have an aggressive ad blocker or something... An outdated mobile app? Or you have very few friends who rarely post?
    • stefs 5y ago
      of course i have an adblocker ... aaaand it looks like that's actually the issue. i don't think it used to be like that.
• ngokevin 5y ago
  And taking down the world with them.
• decafninja 5y ago
  The younger generations seem to have long abandoned it, first in favor of Instagram (I know it's also a FB property), then to others - i.e. TikTok, etc. At least in the US. The only people I see still regularly posting personal updates to FB are older people.
  • Turing_Machine 5y ago
    Yes. My older relatives are still on Facebook and most of them use it heavily. My younger relatives, while most of them do have an account, are seldom if ever on there. I stay on because the older relatives are there, and I like to stay in touch with the extended family. If it weren't for them, I'd be gone as well.
    • decafninja 5y ago
      Same for me. I'm at the age that I feel straddles the social media generational gap (thirties). I use Instagram far more than FB, but still have enough (older) friends/family on FB to check it out now and then. The bulk of my social circle ranges from late 20s to early 40s and they seem to be heavily active on Instagram. I don't have a TikTok account at all (yet)...unsure if anyone I am close to uses it or not.
      • ehnto 5y ago
        There also seems to be a component to internet culture that transcends generation a bit. Like if you are into gaming and play new releases, you'll be playing along with all age groups that enjoy gaming. There isn't really a clear divide between "Games for young adults" and "Games for old people". One place I have noticed some divides for myself at least is in memes, because naturally they tend to be in jokes between tighter knit social groups that eventually become popularized. By the time I see a new meme it's already uncool.
    • mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
      Same for me. This is a strong indicator that FB meaningful usage will fall off a cliff when older relatives start dying. Also lots of risk of dead people's accounts getting hacked.
• wvenable 5y ago
  I've been using Facebook more lately but not as a social network. I've bought and sold a few items on Facebook marketplace. I also now belong to a few obscure technology groups that only exist on Facebook and I have a Quest VR headset. I also use it to see which relatives are now Qanon or Qanon-adacent.
  • tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    >I also use it to see which relatives are now Qanon or Qanon-adacent. I kept my parents off it because I know they would succumb.
• throwmeariver1 5y ago
  Speaking as a creative working with clients up and down the S&P500 in the last years there was a feeling that Facebook got more and more restrictive with creative advertising. In the beginning you could integrate your own apps and interact with pretty much the whole Facebook api you had creative freedom and you could track the effectiveness yourself. After Burger Kings "Sacrifice a friend for a whopper campaign" [0] everything changed. Year after year it got more restrictive even now in their newer offerings you are more and more restricted (Not more than 20% text in ads, no static animations in sparkAR filters the list goes on and on.) AND they are basically just asset flips from other social media or ad networks. Carousel Ads, Stories, SparkAR everything is already there but better from other providers creatives don't like to work on Facebook ads anymore and media companies don't like that they can't sell more adaptions because Facebook Ads are just resells. There was a lot of hype about the metaverse because everyone hoped that there will be creative freedom again but when talking to their agency representatives it looks like it's even more restrictive. At the moment Facebook is basically the garbage dump for assets you already created for other networks, there is no creative freedom and their AR offerings are lacking behind snap and TikTok. In the 2000s and 2010s you sold whole campaigns because of Facebook, now Facebook Ads are just a chart you spend 1 second in a presentation. I believe it's dying and it can't come soon enough for the creative industry. For us, Facebook is now a waste of time and energy. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq_SbjxNvc8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq_SbjxNvc8
  • not2b 5y ago
    Sorry to be blunt, advertisers on Facebook have been a major contributor to its decline, driving out content that people wanted to see, masquerading as real people, etc.
    • throwmeariver1 5y ago
      Creative advertising like the Burger King ad from the post above are ads people want to interact with because they are fun or if you are really good get people to think. Stuff you would share on your own instead of getting it artificially pushed into your feed. The kind of ads you describe are called "prokbelly ads" because you would find them on the flyers of your favorite supermarket. No creative wants to touch them with a poking stick.
• a_chris 5y ago
  Here in Italy, most of the people I know stopped using it, nowaday it is mostly used by our parents and granparents (yea I'm serious)
• tupac_speedrap 5y ago
  More like stagnation, I think pretty much everybody in the world has either decided to use or not use Facebook, there is nowhere for growth since it doesn't appeal to young people and their brand is pretty toxic.
  • nowherebeen 5y ago
    I am willing to bet they have an increasing number of dead accounts. The utility just isn’t there anymore. I see more old people using WhatsApp than Facebook.
    • otherotherchris 5y ago
      Or single purpose accounts that laid dormant. My anonymous marketplace-only account was banned from logging into Facebook after a few months of activity for being what they identified as a "bot account". They say I can send them photographs of my license and a selfie to unlock it, ostensibly so they can use those for Clearview AI to build a profile. I've declined.
• phpisatrash 5y ago
  Here in Brazil, Facebook is a kind of synonym for old people. If you use Facebook people tell you are old. I'm 22, and i don't know anyone from my age group who uses facebook. Youg people are using TikTok and then instagram.
• OhSoHumble 5y ago
  A twelve year old laughed at me for using Facebook - and I mean a genuine, mirthful, hearty laugh. I'm thirty. If I'm being laughed at by someone from generation Z for using Facebook... how will Facebook grow? And I don't even use Facebook that much; most of my social activity occurs on Discord.
  • giancarlostoro 5y ago
    I had no idea this was a thing, but I'm probably about the same, Discord is my main social media platform. Used to be HN.
    • crossroadsguy 5y ago
      HN is/was a social media site? And discord a general social media site? From what I’ve seen of discord it comes across as a site for gamers around gaming world and then proceeding to include also those “interest groups” (ie eating Telegram’s lunch) where those people are active who keep messaging incessantly, memes, LOL kinda things and all. (I mean of course in a pedantic way a lot of site of the Internet will be considered social media sites but we are talking about Facebook specifically here)
      • SllX 5y ago
        Yes, these are social networks. Arguably even a vBulletin forum is a social network and I’ve met some of my best friends in life on those when I was a young lad. If you can post somewhere as a person, build a reputation or identity there, interact with a community and build relationships: congrats, you have a social network. The mechanics of me replying to you on HN, sending an iMessage to a girl, sending a Slack message to my boss or posting to a group in Discord are nearly identical but the people and the intricacies of the software differ. This is one of the reasons I’ve never been a fan of the “Facebook is a social media monopoly” line of thinking, at least in America. Just doesn’t work if you sit down and think about it, it’s just another website that does a few things better than some others and they are massively successful because of what they’ve chosen to be good at. HN is a lot like /., Digg or very early Reddit to me, and it makes sense because it was started with a lot of the same ideas towards the end of that era, but with a purpose to serve Y Combinator’s needs.
• not2b 5y ago
  It's in decline, but there are a couple of local groups on it that I find useful, and it's convenient for sharing pictures with extended family. Some of our younger extended family members only have an FB account to occasionally stay in touch with older relatives but don't use it otherwise. But the local groups might work better as WhatsApp groups, so it's mostly inertia.
• dotcoma 5y ago
  It’s about time.
• sydthrowaway 5y ago
  No, but Instagram is dominating.
• Gualdrapo 5y ago
  Somebody else already mentioned Brazil but I feel like in the rest of Latin America, alas, it's going strong. Lots of pages and groups still working with lots of engagement.
  • dn3500 5y ago
    Here in Mexico everyone is on Facebook. But they don't use it in the classic way, posting vacation photos and family updates. Instead it's a way to find out the hours and location of a restaurant, what night your favorite band is playing, what barrio is having a fiesta this weekend, etc. Most businesses have a Facebook page but no web site.
  • Freeboots 5y ago
    SEAsia too. And not just for typical social; many businesses dont have websites, just a FB page. A lot of online shopping via messenger and paid in cash on delivery, because so many people dont have credit cards.
    • silisili 5y ago
      In many parts of SEAsia FB is synonymous with internet, because FB heavily subsidizes data plans.
• GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Probably. But Facebook doesn't care. They have Instagram, WhatsApp and soon the metaverse. They have enough pans on the fire to keep cooking. I left it long ago too. But WhatsApp is harder to do without. I think their company is doing fine and they seem to diversify very well. The only boat that they really seem to have missed is the community that tiktok serves. But it seems to offer the lowest standard of viral memes and stupid joke videos.. I'm not on tiktok but every time someone sends me a video I really hate, it has their logo on it. I've literally never seen anything that came across my WhatsApp with that logo that was worth watching. So I'm definitely not tempted to try. For some reason it really rubs me the wrong way. It seems to embody everything I hated about what Facebook became. If I were leading Facebook I'd not want to double down on that direction either. For what it's worth, when I was on Facebook I also hated people (re)sharing memes and videos. I used it to see what my friends were up to in their lives but the amount of crap became too high. Too many people sharing memes, 'funny' videos, petitions or trying to sell/promote stuff. I think it's the algorithms egging them on. Trying to get as many likes and followers as they can. Eventually people got disillusioned with that rat race on Facebook, and I think the same will happen to the tiktok crowd. But maybe social media is just not for me. The more algorithms involved, the worse it seems to get at showing me what I want to see. I have very little patience for wading through a timeline of stuff I'm not interested in trying to find the one bit of worthwhile information. WhatsApp has pretty much taken over that function for me. Because it doesn't do any prioritising or inserting ads or content it thinks I will like, it just passes messages like it should do. Just like Facebook used to do before it went down the toilet. Most of my real friends I now have in WhatsApp groups. But of course that's also owned by Facebook.. So yes I think Facebook the company (now meta) will be fine. Facebook the service not. I think the metaverse is a risky bet but potentially very rewarding.
  • redwood 5y ago
    They definitely care! Metaverse is.. highly speculative
  • mathlover2 5y ago
    > and soon the metaverse That assumes Meta's plans for the metaverse ever pay off, and in my humble opinion, that's less than certain.
• mathlover2 5y ago
  I'm 29 and I only use my Facebook as a log-in tool for one or two sites. I left a message on my FB page saying that I'm no longer going to be active there. This was two years ago. My older sister has moved to Instagram. I myself prefer Discord. If I'm representative of younger people—and I have no idea if that's the case—Facebook proper is in deep trouble.
  • metadat 5y ago
    Incidentally, using Instagram still gives money and stats to the same parent company - Meta. So what's the difference? It's still lining Mark Zuckerfuck The Soulless' pockets with gold.
    • mathlover2 5y ago
      I get that, but I'm not the one using Instagram. It's my older sister. I myself don't use Instagram, and I'm meaning to talk to her about it.
• adamredwoods 5y ago
  Are you looking for HN anecdotal sampling or larger data sets? How would you go about getting actual statistically significant data sets?
  • labrador 5y ago
    Just HN. I was looking for opinions from people who are likely attuned to the industry. I guess I wanted to know what the 'word on the street" (god I hate that phrase) was about Facebook.
• Exendroinient00 5y ago
  Seems like it. Now they are trying to switch to the vr/ar stuff and monetize it heavily, possibly by some crypto scheme. Risky move, probably isn’t gonna pan up.
• nunez 5y ago
  not in the slightest. it's a portal to the web for a very large amount of people.
• pedalpete 5y ago
  I noticed a huge decline in friends posting in late 2021. I got a new phone and didn't install the app. I have to go on FB every once in a while because an older app I run has a facebook page, and people sometimes contact me through that. But I just respond to send me an email. When I do look at my feed, much like you, it's no longer my friends posting. The rate of decline could be as strong as facebook's rate of growth back in the day. The less people are engaged, the less people will come back, which leads to a cycle.
• downrightmike 5y ago
  It died when it became non-exclusive to students and let everyone in. Sure they got a broader market, but at this point it is 99% ads in my feed. Why would anyone want that?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • gm 5y ago
    If you're saying it died before it went to 25% of the world's population as a userbase, then you are using a definition of "death" that no one else is using.
    • muzani 5y ago
      I would define it as turning from something loved by a smaller number of people into something most of the world hates a little.
      • kzzzznot 5y ago
        The latter made it a lot of money.
        • muzani 5y ago
          Money is a lagging indicator. The love gave it a lot of value early and that value converted to money several years later. Network effects means it takes a lot of time to switch to a new product, but if they do, it will happen quickly and seemingly suddenly.
• aaron695 5y ago
• neonological 5y ago
  Facebook groups is pretty good. Gotta join the right group. If your asian there was the whole subtle Asian thing a couple years back that generated tons of sub groups like subtle Asian rock climbing. Don't have to be asian too join and I'm positive there's groups outside of the whole subtle Asian thing.
• xyzzy21 5y ago
  Fingers crossed, praying and wishing that it's dying!! I grew up during the Cold War and instantly recognized FB as a Stasi-wet-dream surveillance tool. Never signed up and never will. I'm encouraged that younger folks are rejecting it though I worry they may simply substitute something else equally bad (e.g. TikTok).
  • ud0 5y ago
    • tonfreed 5y ago
      How so?
    • kzzzznot 5y ago
      Are you saying FB and TikTok are not surveillance tools?
  • jdrc 5y ago
    They use Instagram
    • betwixthewires 5y ago
      No they don't, that's old news. 28 year olds chasing validation use Instagram. It's on its way out too. Real young people use discord, Snapchat and tiktok.
      • poisonarena 5y ago
        Nah they def use Instagram, but more as a landing page, Its not cool to post a lot, people in their 20s will have their old posts,rarely posting new ones, but with updated stories.. Teens will have 1 or ZERO actual posts(much cooler), and sparingly use stories, and the stories collections/archive on display above posts are the 'new' way to post. Hardly know any teen or 20 something that uses snapchat as tiktok replaced it years and years ago
      • 5y ago
• idontwantthis 5y ago
  Where I live in Asia it’s indispensable, but still pleasant. I only participate on heavily moderated local groups about local issues. It’s a wonderful way to communicate with people in your community and learn what’s going on. I unfollowed everyone I know in America and don’t interact with any of them.
  • ls15 5y ago
    > Where I live in Asia it’s indispensable, but still pleasant. What would happen if it disappeared?
    • JCharante 5y ago
      Literally impossible to find out about new restaurants. There's no other alternative for finding out about what's happening in my local metropolis. No idea how I'd find out about events. I'm not very proactive about legal updates, that information usually gets propogated through fb or STEP.
    • idontwantthis 5y ago
      It would be really difficult to find anything because businesses are so terrible at advertisement and sales in general here. The government is also terrible at communicating, so it would be very difficult to figure out when laws have changed, and how they are being implemented in practice (very important during Covid). There are other community based websites here, but they are much less well moderated and skew towards scams and vulgarity. This is all from an Expat's perspective, but there aren't any local language alternatives either for reliable community information.
• RedBeetDeadpool 5y ago
  Dont worry, by moving into VR they are totally going to turn the ship around.
  • T-A 5y ago
    About which principal axis?
• smackeyacky 5y ago
  Its really hard as an individual to judge how facebook is doing, because if you ask 10 people you will get 10 different answers based off what the facebook algorithm has decided to show them. For some people it is a wasteland of advertisements because their peers have moved on.
• cute_boi 5y ago
  They will die for sure when they show 99% ads and 1% of the post is cringe. Why should they show me feed that I never care? And, it seems my profile is full of some motivational, ostentatious people which I really don't like
• Shadonototra 5y ago
  it already is dead, new generations are on tiktok, so facebook userbase doesn't get renewed, hence it'll die by demography
• jdrc 5y ago
  Yes. The question is now: Is Instagram dying?
  • Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago
    And the answer to that question is also yes
  • vondro 5y ago
    Meta (pun intended) answer: Everything is dying, slowly or fast, from the moment of inception. Instagram included. But observing my surrounding, it seem that Insta is the sh*t currently, with money, influencers and generally nice pictures, while facebook is for parents to post pictures of their kids.
• _8j50 5y ago
  It won't die like myspace but it is long past it's peak. To me, dead means it is no longer a platform where advertising on it has good ROI. I can't imagine it being in the less than 10M in the US or 100M global daily use count in the next decade, even with a decline I think it can keep up much more addicts coming back to it.
• janmarsal 5y ago
  I find it funny that Facebook is now dying because it's considered "too mature" by the youth because back in the day the whole reason why Facebook got so popular was because it was "more mature" than the pre-teen infested social media platforms that preceded it. I wonder if there is going to be a shift from global to local too. That would be fun to witness. Facebook killed all our national social media platforms the same way it killed myspace in the US.
• Dave3of5 5y ago
  If they are it'll be a long slow death, they still make a lot of money.
• wink 5y ago
  I started using it around 2009ish and stopped using it years ago, only logging like once or twice a year. One reason was nobody was posting anything interesting anymore, that has been going on for over 5 years. A bit hard to generalize because near the end my feed was dominated by 1-2 very active people and I got all their interactions with other people, so only my greater bubble was being silent, not everyone everyone. Hard to tell and you'll probably get a skewed picture here, of people who probably were early adopters (pre 2010) and have since moved on (unless it's big in their family).
• t0bia_s 5y ago
  I don't know. I'm using FB only for sharing links to my portfolio page. I don't consume anything on FB over 3 yeas. RSS give me much more control over my daily feed and I'm ok with that.
• thorin 5y ago
  IMHO people around me have been using FB more in the last couple of years, partly due to the pandemic (UK): 1. generally keeping in touch with people they couldn't see due to travel restrictions, including FB Messenger 2. organising events for people with shared interests / hobbies. I've connected with a lot of new people on hiking and music groups recently that I didn't know before 3. advertising and placing orders on micro businesses e.g. micro breweries, food outlets FB has a platform that can cope with this without any work on the admin side and no cost. The type of things I mentioned in 2/3 often wouldn't exist if the people had to support their own website. Google works for businesses (3) to an extent, but I'm finding listings on fb more common for small events. I'm not sure the other social platforms really cater well for any of these things in my country. This only works because most people in the target demographic are already on fb
• taffronaut 5y ago
  I expect to stay connected periodically on FB to hear about deaths and funerals. For the generation that embraced it, communicating the fact of death seems mostly done over FB.
• pjmlp 5y ago
  Before Facebook we were on Hi5 and Myspace, before that Usenet, Geocities,... The time will come for Facebook as well.
• betwixthewires 5y ago
  I think so. From what I gather from people who do use it, it's all about marketplace and business related groups. So it's basically Craigslist and yellowpages for cold calling at this point. These sorts of features simply don't work on their own, real use is what let's you get away with sticking ads in there, if all anyone ever sees are ads they change the channel. Personally I think all the old guard of social media is dying, and doing their best to hide it. You smell the desperation in their decisions. YouTube, Instagram, twitter, Facebook, reddit, they all seem out of style and things like tiktok, discord and Snapchat seem to be where the hype is. Of course, they're dying at different rates, but they seem to have decided at some point that ux innovation was over, they were done iterating and began to focus on increasing profitability regardless whether decisions improve ux or not, meanwhile new companies began experimenting with different ux approaches and business models. I expect in a few decades it will be common wisdom that social media trends change fast and no social media company will expect to be able to rest on their size and buy up the competition forever.
  • durnygbur 5y ago
    I wonder how Snapchat could be any popular or hyped. The only time I encounter it are Tinder profiles trying to sell me over Snapchat their time-expiring photos for EUR 30 per item.
    • 100011_100001 5y ago
      Snapchat already came and went. TikTok killed it. There are still people using ICQ, but it doesn't mean it's not dead.
      • kbrannigan 5y ago
        Snapchat is biiiiiig among gen z
    • FranksTV 5y ago
      Snapchat is privacy. You can send a snap and it's deleted -- and importantly your mom can't find the pictures of you smoking weed.
• helpfulmandrill 5y ago
  I still have an account, but use it infrequently. Its really just life support for friendships and connections which have been in a vegetative state for years.
• poisonarena 5y ago
  People in Israel, Brasil, Colombia, use it very regularly as it is a means of commerce and basically the only way to find apartments or do so many essential activities. Especially in Israel. I notice that Colombians and Brazilians use Instagram more to make online stores, and home delivery for all kinds of stuff from clothing to beauty products
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• brailsafe 5y ago
  Yes, for a good long time, probably 5 years at least. All of my activity has been on Instagram for ~6 years, and there's basically nothing on FB except marketplace
• lukaslalinsky 5y ago
  I get a feeling that the news feed was never really what social people wanted. And when they included stories, there was even less reason to post to the news feed. I think the most social value of Facebook is in groups. There are some amazing groups where people self-organize, share knowledge and generally help each other. The public FB is mostly about media companies sharing stuff, but groups is where people are actually involved and that part is very much alive.
  • taylodl 5y ago
    FB Groups - that's mostly what I go to FB for. For some kinds of communities it's better than subreddits.
• kate-inqoob 5y ago
  I think so, too. Increasingly, work communication comes from Twitter, Linkedin, and communities on Reddit and IH
• RickJWagner 5y ago
  “We're all dying. That's what defines the condition of living." -Winston S. Churchill So yes. Facebook is slowly dying, with it's aging users. (Kids don't use it much.) But it's going to take a long, long time. Facebook Marketplace draws users of all ages, and there's always the chance of some innovation along the way that might draw younger people in. I wouldn't bet on Facebook dying any faster than Twitter or Snapchat.
• jonp888 5y ago
  The posting of status updates has declined, but at least for me there's still a lot of worthwhile content there which I can't get anywhere else. I am a member of a number of active Facebook Groups for neighbourhood news, some niche hobbies too small to have their own forums, etc.. I also quite come across planned sport/music events which have only a very basic website, with all updates about the event posted on Facebook. I think the killer feature is the to the ability to post photos along with text and then discuss it, without relying on external services. Forums can't handle photos well, and Instgram doesn't deal with long form text or extensive discussion well.
• lacavao 5y ago
  Has anyone else noticed Facebook getting more aggressive in its attempts to get you back on the platform? Just this morning, I actually received an SMS about one of my old uni professors sharing a link. And that's on top of more popup notifications, emails, etc.
• lifeplusplus 5y ago
  Thing is people I was friends 10 years ago I'm not now... Fb biggest mistake was insistence connecting only with people you know. Of course I don't wanna see what timmy from English class in hs is doing now and even if I see anything I'm not respond after 10 years of silence.. then Facebook made sure your every activity was broadcasted to entire network and having two accounts is highly discouraged. So once entire 4 generations were there I couldn't even like a meme without thinking how it's gonna look to granddad. Now timeline became even more garbage ads and ads.... I truly think idea of timeline is more fundamental whether it's newsfeed, Twitter, YouTub... It's rewarding to keep scrolling and keep finding great stuff...
• cableshaft 5y ago
  A good chunk of the board game industry is on Facebook (and if not there, then on Twitter), across a handful of board game promotional or design discussion groups. Facebook is nice in that if any of those people I'm friends with post in one of those groups it'll notify me and I can pop in and comment and maintain my network / see what they're up to that way, and I can share what I'm working on and see what people are interested in it. Outside of that, it mostly seems to be another receptacle for hot takes nowadays, which doesn't really interest me (why I'm barely on Twitter). When I want to discuss current events I'll go to a subreddit and discuss it more or less anonymously, I'd rather not risk annoying or pissing off (or myself becoming pissed off at) people in my Facebook friends list.
• haskellisameme 5y ago
  No
• lazlee 5y ago
  God, I hope so.
• yesenadam 5y ago
  There seems a weird bubble or disconnect from the world in such questions, and in comments like this, from this page: "I think so. From what I gather from people who do use it, it's all about marketplace and business related groups. So it's basically Craigslist and yellowpages for cold calling at this point." I've read so many times on HN that no-one uses FB. Meanwhile, I have friends in many countries around the world I chat with on FB. In India, Russia, SE Asia, Australia, west & east Europe, Africa, latin america etc. The majority of their siblings, parents, children if they have them, are on FB too. So are all their friends. Just about everyone in a lot of countries, seemingly almost all of them, is on there. I haven't posted anything much in years, maybe once a year. I very rarely look at the news feed. Mostly I'm on FB to chat with friends, and look at their pics if we didn't chat in a while. We exchange pictures, audio, video, PDFs, links etc in the chat. One of these "No-one uses FB" people might look at my wall and think I'm never on FB any more, too, I guess. I'm not sure if the HN meme of "No-one uses FB" means just "in my circle" and/or "in the USA".. but in the wider world, it does seem like everyone, from 8 to 80, uses it. Everyone with a phone/internet, anyway. Also, not sure why some people seem to have the idea that FB is just about the news feed and nothing else. As if one is forced to spend all time on FB scrolling the news feed, and if that's bad then FB is useless.
  • tcbasche 5y ago
    It's the classic HN echo chamber. It's the same people that say nobody uses Amazon anymore, Google search doesn't work, everybody codes in Clojure now etc. etc.
• gnutrino 5y ago
  Facebook is so feature bloated now. I rarely log in anymore because it is just too overwhelming. I literally have 30 menu options in the side bar. This is not an exaggeration. There are stores, memories, groups, marketplaces, messaging, live, watch. It's insanity. They've gotten too good at keeping your attention. My mom is addicted to facebook. She can't put it down. She is constantly telling me about news articles and crap I don't care about. Facebook is a cancer that people should cut out. Instagram isn't as bad (yet).
• minroot 5y ago
  In Bangladesh it's booming
• Randolf_Scott 5y ago
• kderbyma 5y ago
  I deleted my Facebook for the exact reason you describe. it was a graveyard and Facebook's didn't even have enough content it was recycling content for days....I only wanted it for groups and those were getting to be dead too...
• larodi 5y ago
  Facebook died long ago. Perhaps was really alive only for few years. What we see are the leftovers…
• dwags 5y ago
  Facebook is king for niche groups and I just don't know why. I'd love to give it up but I honestly don't know a better way to interact with these micro groups i've grown to love. P.S the answer is most definitely not reddit
• unixhero 5y ago
  I use it for messaging, events and birthday updates.
• AlexPMHero 5y ago
  Yes, it is, but it will be a long and painful one, as they are the biggest social network, by far. Developers and other platforms are slowly decoupling from Facebook (FB Login, Ads, etc) and it's impacting their business. As they lose users, and engagement, they will lose ad dollars. This will cause them to make short term decisions to make up for the loss, which may hurt them in the long run. The saving grace is if they somehow deliver on their Metaverse promise. Zuck knew FB was dying before everyone else, hence the full on pivot. We'll see if they can reinvent themselves to become the leader in Web3, which could ultimately save the company. As it stands today, with war waging on multiple fronts, regulation, user sentiment, competition, emerging trends and so on, they are dying.
• jackroblcc 5y ago
  I think nope. Where do you live, the US? In some Asian and African countries, Facebook is indeed popular. They will still share everything there, and chat with each other. Maybe you can say Facebook is dying in the US when there're twitter, IG, WhatsApp. But global, I think Facebook, the app itself, is still the largest social media in thr worly and still will be for a very long time unless Meta wants to shut it down on Africa and Asia
• kyriakos 5y ago
  Facebook messenger still being used a lot but I don't see a lot of people browsing their timeline anymore. Specialised groups get some attention though.
• nikolay 5y ago
  Yes - slowly, but surely!
• rurban 5y ago
  First they killed messaging without the spying app. mbasic is no more. Then they killed the editbox by an upgrade which didn't work. you cannot post sentences anymore, just word's. yes, they killed it. Messenger on purpose, other core features by incompetence.