4 ms·

I don't think Facebook really belongs in this conversation. As much as the VR stuff is silly their core business is still doing very well

jabradoodle 3y ago
And so is googles, Facebook are spending more than $10B a year on VR. For context that is more than Nvidia's quite large R&D budget, which they have ramped up on consistently over years. Facebook has gone from 0 to 10B real fast.
wordpad25 3y ago
people treat facebook as if it were like their myspace, something dumb they did in their youth that's not longer relevant and is dying reality is pretty different, fb business is doing great despite all their missteps
- wvenable 3y ago
  I use Facebook more than ever these days but oddly for none of things I used to use it for. It's now got some obscure technical community groups that are too niche and too small for reddit or discord. Facebook Marketplace has replaced craigslist. My friend feed is totally incidental to my use of Facebook.
- bigger_cheese 3y ago
  Personally in my circle I still use Facebook messenger service - my extended family has a group chat and some of my friend groups still use messenger chats (I'd say post pandemic discord is used more then messenger now) my parents use messenger to video chat with their grandkids. It's essentially become skype. The actual facebook.com friend feed etc. is essentially dead for me at least.
ninth_ant 3y ago
Google’s core businesses are doing just fine too. Twitter has suffered financially but I’ve seen little evidence that they’ve lost substantial numbers of users — Twitter posts are still in news articles and sites like HN as if it’s still serving it’s original purpose despite the noise.
ascendantlogic 3y ago
A lot of "legacy" companies had businesses that were doing very well but missed the boat one or more times as new things arrived. Microsoft is a good example. Windows and Office was absolutely, positively printing money. They whiffed on mobile so hard it was comical. Going back further in time, IBM got mauled in the PC business over time, even though mainframes and PCs were keeping the lights on for decades. I disagree with the assertion that in 5 years these companies may be heavily disrupted but these darlings that preyed on the fact the incumbents were ossified, large and slow are now themselves ossified, large and slow. The cycle continues on. In the particular case of Twitter they're being actively driven into the ground by a guy who seems determined to wake up each day and not go to bed until he's made some very poor decisions so who knows, maybe they will crash and burn quickly.
- somsak2 3y ago
  Indeed. Really makes you respect the repositioning Microsoft has achieved with their cloud and AI businesses.

jabradoodle 3y ago

And so is googles, Facebook are spending more than $10B a year on VR. For context that is more than Nvidia's quite large R&D budget, which they have ramped up on consistently over years. Facebook has gone from 0 to 10B real fast.

wordpad25 3y ago

people treat facebook as if it were like their myspace, something dumb they did in their youth that's not longer relevant and is dying reality is pretty different, fb business is doing great despite all their missteps

wvenable 3y ago
I use Facebook more than ever these days but oddly for none of things I used to use it for. It's now got some obscure technical community groups that are too niche and too small for reddit or discord. Facebook Marketplace has replaced craigslist. My friend feed is totally incidental to my use of Facebook.
bigger_cheese 3y ago
Personally in my circle I still use Facebook messenger service - my extended family has a group chat and some of my friend groups still use messenger chats (I'd say post pandemic discord is used more then messenger now) my parents use messenger to video chat with their grandkids. It's essentially become skype. The actual facebook.com friend feed etc. is essentially dead for me at least.

ninth_ant 3y ago

Google’s core businesses are doing just fine too. Twitter has suffered financially but I’ve seen little evidence that they’ve lost substantial numbers of users — Twitter posts are still in news articles and sites like HN as if it’s still serving it’s original purpose despite the noise.

ascendantlogic 3y ago

A lot of "legacy" companies had businesses that were doing very well but missed the boat one or more times as new things arrived. Microsoft is a good example. Windows and Office was absolutely, positively printing money. They whiffed on mobile so hard it was comical. Going back further in time, IBM got mauled in the PC business over time, even though mainframes and PCs were keeping the lights on for decades. I disagree with the assertion that in 5 years these companies may be heavily disrupted but these darlings that preyed on the fact the incumbents were ossified, large and slow are now themselves ossified, large and slow. The cycle continues on. In the particular case of Twitter they're being actively driven into the ground by a guy who seems determined to wake up each day and not go to bed until he's made some very poor decisions so who knows, maybe they will crash and burn quickly.

somsak2 3y ago
Indeed. Really makes you respect the repositioning Microsoft has achieved with their cloud and AI businesses.