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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

I’ve become throughly convinced that the only way to dethrone Facebook is by creating the Next Big Thing and being crazy (and well-funded) enough to reject any acquisitions on the way up. “Delete your Facebook” social movements are doomed from the start.

Social trends seem to come in waves, and people get bored quickly. I wouldn’t be surprised if the world tires of today’s brand of social media in a decade or two. The Facebook Killer will thus be something completely different, not merely a better or more ethical version of contemporary social media.

Or maybe I’m just being too optimistic.

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I haven't used Facebook in almost a decade and I haven't missed it for a second. I sometimes ask friends and family why they use it and the answer is always either "I don't know" or "to keep track of friends and family" (AKA: a glorified contact list). Many of them talk about getting rid of it, but few ever follow through.

People love to speculate about "Facebook Killers", but what is there to even kill? Facebook doesn't offer people a useful service. It's just familiar and ubiquitous, so it exists in perpetuity.

> The Facebook Killer will thus be something completely different, not merely a better or more ethical version of contemporary social media.

Then it's not a "Facebook Killer", is it? It would just be another social media platform added to the pile. Just another Twitter, Snapchat, TicTok, etc.

I had in mind more of a societal shift that makes FB/IG/etc. deeply uncool. Maybe living a super secretive life, never sharing anything, becomes the counterculture of the 2040s.

I just can’t imagine young people (main drivers of social media) are going to be happy with circa 2005 social media forever.

As I understand, young people already aren't happy with Facebook. FB's heavy users seem to be primarily millennials, gen X, and boomers.

TikTok is actually a great example of this, and it already exists! “But I don’t like TikTok, therefore it’s not a Facebook replacement!” you may be tempted to retort with, but the parent comment said it exactly— it’s something completely different.

If I were an angel I'd be piling money into personal servers and open sourced self hosted software following the "commoditize the complement" strategy.

People want crazy profits for their crazy funding. I think a more viable solution is legislation to force data to be open. It’s a complex thing to do however.

I would love in some alternate timeline for someone to create a website called deletefacebook.com or something similar that allows people to create a profile and make posts about why they don't use facebook that becomes so large it replaces facebook itself. (obviously using facebook in the domain is ripe for getting it taken down, but you get the idea)

Sounds like the beginning of a JL Borges story.

Probably so. The part of the population that reacts in any way to "delete your account" is probably 0.25% - FB knows that, too. Fine if every other month a #deletefb campaign comes around, the MAU is a harder fact.

The next big thing must flush you with probably an order or so more dopamine - maybe some free artificial/AR world with hundreds of new cool friends who aren't real but make you feel better. That would be so 2020s!

Snapchat and TikTok both did exactly that.

They're fundamentally different, though. Tiktok is much more viable as a read-only, addictive content thing; but I never added people I knew on there during my month-long soujourn to discover what it was all about, nor did I feel any need to comment.

Are they better alternatives than Facebook's platforms?

Depends on who you ask I guess. I don't know anyone under 30 today still using Facebook.

I don't see how any of the problems with facebook are due to any specific aspect of how they operate. It's the nature of any social network. Is there actually less garbage on Insta or Twitter or YouTube? The problem we people feeling compelled to post nonsense, to obsess over status, to be anxious about social inclusion and the free flow of disinformation. Happens everywhere.

How do you define the "nature of a social network?" Is it simply a place where one can connect digitally through a persistent profile? The social networks today are much more than that and heavily rely on algorithms to broadcast information. I think that is the main difference. We can have a social network that is much more static and probably less addicting, attractive, filled with ads, etc, if you skip the algorithmic feed. It may decrease the negative points you called out.

Hackernews is also a kind of social network.

Because fb was all of those things? If people were more honest with themselves about what fb does for them and a healthy alternative like WhatsApp comes out that appeals to Americans, we'll be on our way. The Next Big Thing is never planned, it just happens.

They tried. It was called gab.ai but it was deplatformed on mobile for wrongthink.

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