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Comment by cm2187 | Hacker News Reader

I'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.

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In 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.

>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.

Obviously 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.

Sure, 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.

That’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.

My 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.

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