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Comment by Aperocky | Hacker News Reader

Well all of those point seem to sum up to:

"We're getting beat by Tiktok and we're going to catch up by being more like tiktok"

That doesn't exactly exude confidence.

Didn't they do the same thing when Snapchat took off and then blew it out of the water with Instagram Stories? There is a track record.

I will say Instagram is getting so crowded.

Adding Stories to Instagram felt natural, but shoving Reels in, feels like a squeeze.

I would argue that they destroyed Instagram in the process. It set them on a path where they add more and more "features" to Instagram for legitimate strategic reasons, but in the process it turned a focused app into something now approaching the hot garbage that is the Facebook.

The hot garbage app makes almost as much money as Facebook, so... There's that...

For now, but this whole thread is about accepting short term costs for long term gains. The overall direction of Instagram doesn't seem to be following that model.

This book explains very well why and how FB destroyed Instagram from day one, cutting its core values (and therefore long-term value) into pieces.

https://www.amazon.com/No-Filter-Inside-Story-Instagram-eboo...

During the time they added stories to Instagram there was still more signal then noise. I enjoyed them because my friends shared casually and it was actually fun to go along on their vacation or bike ride, and not just see the perfectly composed photos which are usually the more polished summary of what the stories covered.

At this point, IG is Facebook. The feed is a slurry of signal, random suggestions, shitty ‘memes,’ and ads. When I stumble onto a Reel somehow, it’s the same crap. Stories worked for me because it was my friends. Reels is just random flotsam, and it seems like a ton of it is just reposts from TikTok anyway.

Meta’s repeating pattern is to enter every new format, screw with the chronology and cram it full of robo-content until it’s unbearable to look at. That Zuck calls chasing short-form video fad a long-term strategy is pretty telling. They have nothing but crap to sell, and if (if) Metaverse turns out to be anything, it will just be more crap, but you’d have to have your face inside a helmet in order to to enjoy the boomer arguments, shitty ‘memes,’ TikTok reposts and whatever else the content slurry that yields the most engagement is.

There are plenty of parallels with what happened with Snapchat Stories, but I do wonder if it's the "same thing".

Stories are best when created by people you know, and they're easy to create too. They're the type of content that would build off of Instagram's social strengths.

The type of content people consume on TikTok, as far as I understand, is largely made by creators though. This is similar to YouTube; they now even get financial compensation directly for it too [1] (although apparently this compensation is not as good as YouTube's).

This could be a Snapchat vs Instagram Stories situation, or it could be a YouTube vs Facebook Watch / IGTV situation. Facebook has historically been notoriously bad at creating a high-quality video platform, so if that's what it takes to beat TikTok I honestly wouldn't expect Instagram Reels to overtake TikTok anytime soon, especially considering a lot of what I've seen there are random accounts reposting TikTok content (which feels a bit like the type of content Watch became infamous for).

[1]: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-gb/tiktok-creator-fund-your-q...

TikTok has way more momentum than Snapchat had at the time.

Snapchat DAUs today: 300M

TikTok DAUs today: 1B

It's terrifying, in fact. TikTok is specifically engineered to be cocaine for your attention. This is a race to the bottom, where the human attention span parallels that of a gnat.

Why not? It worked when they copied Snapchat's stories feature.

Because so far their content is full of obviously fake poor quality videos and their selection algorithm for those is basically an RNG.

It’s too late. Nobody is switching from TikTok to Facebook.

I think the key is that youth are going to TikTok and not Facebook.

They lost the next generation of kids!

Yeah idk I thought the same last time but somehow Facebook always comes back buy buying everything And copying everyone

It’s time to stop Facebook buying companies then - how anyone approved them buying WhatsApp is beyond my understanding. I really don’t like TikTok, but I really don’t like Facebook (the company) a bit more, so I hope TikTok does well and will not be bought.

They can acquire new users but copying them or buying them won’t necessarily keep them.

If the youth are allergic to any FB networks there just needs to be a viable alternative for them to flee.

They can’t buy TikTok, and it’s too late to copy it.

Probably not but the TikTok has to pivot before they loose steam and start being a coglomorate otherwise they Will eventually fade so it depends on how successfully they execute this. Meantime Facebook just needs to catch the next TikTok to be relevant again.

Both companies have to keep evolving to stay relevant, yes.

One is declining and reviled, and the other is growing and seen as fun.

That’s the only difference.

But one sits on a mountain of cash and the other on just a hill

I guess you are not aware that TikTok is both highly profitable and valuable.

But it’s not Facebook size yet

Don’t you mean Facebook isn’t TikTok’s size yet, since Facebook is declining both in revenue and users.

Full support of the PRC is more than a "hill"

Bacause FB/Meta and none of it's other incarnations is not fashionable among young generation anymore, it's platform for old people.

I'm wondering what kind of play would be successful long-term in this scenario with long-lasting social platform to capture next generation which is naturally inclined to be in opposition when it comes to parents way of life. Maybe creating some kind of "undercover" division not officially connected to parent company? Or even spinning it as some part of company "revolting" against main body and going "rogue". But in both cases mainly founding would uncover the plot. Of course buying competitors usually works too to some degree - or at least allows to buy some time.

Pretty sure their whole foray into metaverse and Oculus VR is to capture the younger generation of the future.

I’m addicted to 9Gag, which is closer to TikTok, but the difference is Facebook’s intensive work on breaching privacy, telling all my friends what posts I like. On 9Gag, liking/commenting is basically anonymous, so we’re not afraid of being seen liking something - thus my 15hrs a week in the app.

I don't know a single person under 30 that still uses Facebook for real. They mostly are still there to talk to grandma or parents. If Facebook hadn't bought whatsapp they would be toast. The writing is on the wall, the beginning of the MySpace curve happening before our very eyes.

They also have Instagram, Messenger and Oculus. I think without Whatsapp they'd still be doing decent, and not toast.

The media format is the same but it is superficial and a shallow moat at best. The social networks are quite different:

FB: formal private (or special interest, in Groups);

Insta: close private (or public if you are a verified content producer);

TikTok: still about building ad hoc network effects based on content alone.

BoomerTok

I don’t think Facebook will catch up to TikTok with Reels. I do think that it’s quite probably that TikTok will fuck yo their platform before they take down FB.

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