According to whom? Hacker news doomsday predictors? They have literally over a billion MAUs right? Just because the demographic skews older doesn't make those users less valid.
I wonder how accurate that number is though. FB is not really known for providing accurate statistics [0].
To clarify, I don't think they are dead and are humungous irrespective of how accurate the numbers are. But considering the history of the company, I don't think any of their metrics/statements can be trusted.
0 - https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/17/17989712/facebook-inaccu...
There are browser plugins to filter out groups, pages and ads from your feed. That removed, it's basically a ghost town, at least for everyone I know that tried. It's become a glorified web portal/forum from the dot com boom at this point, and not a particularly good one at that. Within 5 years FB (the website, not the company) as it is will disappear or become irrelevant.
As an aside, I’m a little uneasy with this statement. We always get reminders of the disconnect between the stock market and reality.
However, I lived in the HN bubble for a few years and came to conclusion that FB is dead. Over a few months last year I realized how active FB is and was shocked to learn that lot of people use FB to form new relationships, sell things and discover new stuff.
I don’t plan to activate my FB account but the view that FB is dead is utter nonsense
Not only have they never seemed in danger for a moment from the outside looking in, but all of the issues and controversy around facebook a decade ago that caused me to quit have been replaced by entirely different concerns every few years, increasingly based on political winds. The content of anti-facebook sentiment has been ephemeral, and the backlash always disorganized.
And above all, nothing has stopped people from at least logging in once a day, checking their messages, checking their groups, organizing events and responding to event invitations, and angrily responding to right/left wing comments from friends-of-friends. People continue to do thie like a chore, even if they get their all day dopamine hits from somewhere else like reddit/twitter, facebook's own instagram, or even the google news feed. Meanwhile, the suburban white-wingers who get their dopamine hits from facebook spend all day generating the content that pisses off the "barely use facebook anymore" people, extending their single or twice-daily visit, and also providing the cultural strife that they're reacting to on reddit/twitter/instagram/google news.
Observing younger people in my family I think there has been a shift in recent years. When I was growing up being able to connect with friends outside of school, etc was a real privilege and something we had not had before services like MSN and MySpace.
These days kids are connected primary via online interactions from what I've seen. The young guys in my family spend hours chatting to friends on XBox while the girls play games like Roblox together and message on apps like TikTok / Snap. They don't need a Facebook because they're already connected through their other online activities. In fact when I've asked them about Facebook they don't even get why it's a thing and have told me flat out that it's a site for old people.
Even among people my age there is no long the desire to share things publicly and instead to connect via private messaging services which as OP suggested isn't going to be as easily monetisable.
1. Craigslist (via Marketplace) 2. meetup.com (via Groups) 3. NextDoor (also via Groups - this is probably a local thing because in Baltimore there is a perception that NextDoor and its userbase are racist) 3. The Yellow Pages (via Pages for Local Businesses)
Maybe it's dead as a social platform for cool young people, but ... if we're thinking of doing work on our house, my wife asks for contractor recommendations on the Facebook groups for our neighborhood and HOA. I bought a bike on Marketplace, I'm constantly driving around to get free / cheap kid stuff my wife found on Marketplace.
My wife and I were never "Facebook people" (we met on Reddit), but now we use it a lot just because it seems like Facebook completely owns the social-local space, for young-/middle-aged adults, especially those with kids.
Although doing my best to get as many people as possible to use signal.
As a result, there are discussions about fines which can reach up to 55 million € and even a complete ban (https://www.br.de/nachrichten/netzwelt/telegram-droht-aerger...).
Literally doesn't matter, it's time to realize that FB, Whatsapp, IG are all the same data bucket. Doesn't matter which you use, which you boycott if you touch any of these you're a FB user and if a single person who knows you IRL uses any of these and allows contacts access you are at least a shadow profile in their system.
Saying that I do believe both FB and IG will be surpassed by other networks within 10 years. The only thing up in the air is if those networks accept FBs offer of not.
Anyone who uses facebook or an iWatch or any of this garbage has all the information they need. They choose to be a victim. Its a cultural problem not a Zuckerburg problem.
Did they choose to have decades of behavioral and psychological research weaponized against them in order to lash them to these systems? Did they all choose for their friends and family and huge swaths of their social life and day-to-day communications to be subsumed?
So yes, I'd argue that they did choose that. Their complacency is their consent.
>“Congresswoman, My daughters are five and three and they do not use our products. Actually that is not exactly true my eldest daughter, Max, I let use Messenger Kids sometimes to message her cousins,” said Mr Zuckerberg.