You know FB owns Instagram though right? Why do they care if you spend money there or on FB proper?
Wait, are you talking about me?
In my post I don't even hint at anything even close to that, I don't have any bias against Facebook, the company or the website. I'm not even talking about the future of Facebook AT ALL in the post. I'm just stating some metrics we gathered at my last workplace that might be helpful for people using social media.
Are you sure you're not projecting, or being over-defensive?
Because the audiences are different?
The audiences for Starbucks Latte and Cappuccino are different. Starbucks is indifferent whether you buy one or the other though.
My analogy would be that Yum Brands doesn't care whether you visit Taco Bell or Pizza Hut. In the same way Facebook (inc) doesn't care whether you visit Facebook or Instagram.
I think that you're being a bit over simplistic, there is a lot of decision making based around company component performance, poor sales number within the Facebook native platform may influence more money being redirected to support Instagram which might end up as a personnel cut in an extreme circumstance.
1. Reeeeeally loosely defined, since AFAICT Facebook isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
I have an interesting approach. Maybe it falls flat on its face, but maybe it could work.
Create a "liberally themed" Facebook clone and onboard a bunch of people during the run up to the election. Give them tooling under the guise of campaigning, but also get them to use Facebook like features.
Ban any conservative thought or commentary. It's harsh, it's undemocratic, but it plays into the attack. Especially if you can drum up press coverage on Fox News.
Hypothetically, a polarized platform could create a stir. Maybe liberals on Facebook get interested. Maybe it leads to a small migration. This furthers the right-leaning polarizarion of Facebook's userbase, causing more liberals to flee. Thermal runaway.
This "Facebook is for Republicans" narrative is aided by the recent rumors that Zuckerburg has been meeting with Republican leaders about campaign advertising.
If you completely brain drain Facebook of the liberal demographic and make it skew far right, are the engineers, predominantly liberals, going to continue to be excited coming to work to build that product?
I think it's an interesting approach. It's far-fetched and kind of sneaky, but I'd love to see something like this attempted.
It would prove a new vector of attack for entering the social space. Something that even Instagram might be vulnerable to.
In my post I just mentioned which beverage my customers prefer, I never implied that Starbucks is closing or should close...
Facebook (the product) is an absolute dumpster fire that is primarily used to spread propaganda that Facebook (the company) is unable and unwilling to stop.
Facebook (the company) is doing just fine, because they quickly realized social media sites are basically dating sites, where each new age cohort attaches to a different one. That means Facebook (the product) can indeed be awful and not affect the company much since all the users just moved to Instagram.