
Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealth, Facebook has peaked - JohnHammersley
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-42974551
======
clay_the_ripper
I’m no fan of Facebook, but I don’t agree with the premise of the article. The
power of Facebook lies in its network effect: something on the order of 2
billion have active Facebook accounts. Whether or not people are spending more
or less time on the platform doesn’t matter as much as people seem to think it
does. What matters is the fact that they can associate web browsing actions
(pages visited etc) with your Facebook account. Just having a Facebook account
that you “don’t use” allows a massive amount of value (from an advertisers
perspective) to be unlocked.

In my opinion no other network is going to be able to compete with the number
of users on facebooks platform, and any that do, Facebook will buy or copy
(Instagram and Snapchat respectively). Even if you don’t actively look at
anything on Facebook, or even log in, the fact that you have a Facebook
account allows advertisers to track and target you with ads on all sorts of
platforms and websites that are available to Facebook advertisers through the
audience network (ad placements on millions of websites and mobile apps). The
crucial moat that Facebook has is simply the massive nimber of registered
users (that correspond to people’s real identity) on the platform combined
with sophisticated tools to reach those users both on and off Facebook.

I’d love to hear an opposing argument, but the way I see it Facebook is here
to stay and will only get bigger and more profitable in the foreseeable
future.

~~~
randomsearch
What if those two billion accounts are bullshit?

Has anyone actually done a sample of Facebook users (or humans) to check those
stats? I do not believe them, based on my personal experience and the very
large number of businesses and bots on facebook.

Given the massive incentive for Facebook to lie, we’d be naive to take their
numbers for granted.

If they provided really fine-grained data, we could easily verify their
claims. We pick cities, they give numbers, we survey to confirm, then
extrapolate.

Anyone got any data?

~~~
scarface74
Another perspective, how many users are actually dead?

[http://www.theloop.ca/dead-facebook-users-will-soon-
outnumbe...](http://www.theloop.ca/dead-facebook-users-will-soon-outnumber-
the-living/)

EDIT:

Well they do measure active _daily_ users but I still think the article above
is interesting.

~~~
nicktirrell
fascinating stats here, thanks for the article.

------
omarforgotpwd
Facebook is just getting started. Imagine you have a dataset that can identify
over a billion people around the world simply by looking at their face. When
you walk into McDonalds, cameras analyze you and the people you enter with.
Oh, there's John Smith and his friend Tom. He loves the McFlurry. Instantly
the digital menus rearrange to feature a large McFlurry, animating and
advertising a deal on the largest size. Facebook is just beginning to monetize
the value of what they have created.

~~~
nitwit005
You can make the "just getting started" argument for just about any company.

What you describe does not seem to require the involvement of Facebook. It
doesn't even seem to require cameras. Just ask them to swipe their credit card
to start using the automated ordering system.

~~~
omarforgotpwd
Not any company. Every decade has a foundational technology upon which most of
the economic growth of that period is based. 1987 - 1997 was the decade of the
personal computer. 1997 - 2007 was the decade of the world wide web. 2007 \-
2017 was the decade of mobile which is just starting to get mature. 2017 -
2027 will be the decade of AI / autonomy. Who will be the companies that excel
at AI? The ones that can invest the most engineering dollars, and __the ones
that have access to large datasets for training __. So I suppose you could say
all tech companies with large datasets are just getting started given the
growth I imagine we’ll see in the next decade.

Also I’m talking about tracking someone using their face, without them
interacting with any systems at all or even checking out. Sure you could do
implement a simpler similar system with credit cards but people have many
credit cards that change often and so it would be difficult to get an accurate
full profile of an individual. By contrast Facebooks AI would be universal and
would be able to look at what you ordered at Wendy’s and use that to optimize
the menu that is presented to the user for optimal conversions, even if you’ve
never been in a mcdonald’s before. This is nice if you’re mcdonald’s but if
you’re a small restaurant it’s a game changer. I don’t even know if Facebook
is working on this but you can imagine them making a lot of money offering
these types of services.

------
dang
I'm not sure if this article can support a substantive discussion or not, but
thought it might be worth the trick of taking a more complex phrase for the
title in the hope of stimulating more substantive responses. HN threads are
often like those psych tests that measure complexity of response by time
delay.

It's a bit weird, but there's some reason to believe that just the small tax
it imposes on the brain to parse a complex title may slow it down enough to
discourage pure reflex in reaction. Reflective, not reflexive, reactions are
what we're going for here.

~~~
JohnHammersley
Thanks dang, I used the title from the article, but much prefer the updated
one. Hoping it will generate some interesting discussion

------
git-pull
They're influencing the internet in more ways than just social stuff, though.
From a technology perspective, Facebook is doing solid work. And it looks like
they're continuing the trend - rather than being at the end of it.

Facebook's open source footprint is quite influential. Namely, React + Redux +
Reselect are pretty sweet. React-Native. Haven't used it, but hhvm.

And I haven't heard of this one before, but it looks cool:
[https://github.com/facebook/prepack](https://github.com/facebook/prepack)

[https://github.com/facebook](https://github.com/facebook)

That's a nice portfolio.

~~~
bcherny
Prepack is one of the coolest ideas to come out of FB OSS.

The idea is to run your JS program as part of compilation, evaluating it as
much as you can. Then take what's left in the heap and serialize it back to
JS. Then ship that to browsers/devices.

AFAIK, that sort of AoT evaluation has been limited to academia and niche
applications in Haskell and OCaml because purity analysis is so tricky in
languages that don't track effects.

~~~
ikeyany
> The idea is to run your JS program as part of compilation, evaluating it as
> much as you can. Then take what's left in the heap and serialize it back to
> JS. Then ship that to browsers/devices.

Could you elaborate on what is cool about that? I feel like I'm missing
something...sounds like it analyzes javascript to make it run faster.

~~~
bcherny
If you have some JavaScript code, it goes through a few phases as it's
evaluated by your browser:

1\. Parsing

2\. JIT optimizing

3\. Compilation to bytecode

4\. Re-optimization as the program runs

Steps 1 and 2 are expensive, and there are a few ways to cut down on them:

\- Removing dead code before you ship

\- Optimizing your code for the JIT compiler (eg. Closure Compiler does this)

\- Webassembly

\- Pre-evaluating your code with Prepack

More philosophically, the question is "when does my code run?". The answer has
usually been "on the client". With Prepack, the answer is "as much as possible
during compilation, and the remainder on the client".

------
scarface74
Without going to deeply into the content of the article, just because a
company has “peaked” doesn’t mean it’s “failing”. IBM peaked decades ago, but
still has a somewhat successful business. Microsoft peaked in terms of
influence probably a decade ago, but is still important. I doubt that Facebook
will go the way of MySpace or Yahoo anytime soon.

~~~
askafriend
Not only is Microsoft still important, their stock performance has been pretty
phenomenal in the past decade.

------
utellme
Almost nobody talks about lack of trust, yes there are words about fake news
and formal reassurances from FB staff that they will investigate, fix and so
on. But trust was already undermined, you just can't restore it to previous
level.

People were reading news in FB feed and didn't even think it can be fake, now
they read and go "outside" for fact checking. Not a good sign for social
network which wants you to be engaged all the time.

~~~
zer00eyz
> People were reading news in FB feed and didn't even think it can be fake,
> now they read and go "outside" for fact checking.

You know this is an interesting topic in and of itself. Are people looking
outside FB for news? I would argue that if FB supports your world view that
people aren't looking outside of it. Others have had the same theory:

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beli...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beliefs/)

The reality is that the internet provides a platform to even the most marginal
ideas, time cubes, flat earths, and lots of rather stupid ideas that have no
basis in logic or reason. If these things appeal to you seeing them in print
and on video will only bolster ones false reasoning and allow you to further
push out other points of view.

~~~
utellme
I won't agree that internet provides you with such level of information.
Internet is a service, it can't figure out your desires, but FB and other
social networks really try to do it.

The only reason such for fake news being spreaded everywhere are suggests and
recommendations from social networks feed. They multiply junk and fakes.

------
scythe
Facebook just needs to lose its "evil" image. I could throw out ideas but
let's face it everyone does that and I have zero experience running a social
network. Right now the biggest obstacle facing Facebook is that people are
starting to think that using Facebook is bad for you and bad for society.
Facebook cannot survive in such a climate indefinitely. If it's true, make it
false. If it's false, prove it.

~~~
rock_hard
Well said.

Though I could imagine that only <1% of FB users are aware of all the
headlines we get served here on HN every day...so it’s probably not a real
issue

------
araes
In a math sense, the signal to noise ratio on FB became much higher over the
last decade. At inception, it was a focused way to directly communicate with a
close college circle. Now its effectively as open as Myspace, bombards you
with ads, and as with all wide networks, the discourse has dropped to meme /
quiz bot level (Which annoying social media app represents you?!)

~~~
rhizome
_In a math sense, the signal to noise ratio on FB became much higher over the
last decade. At inception, it was a focused way to directly communicate with a
close college circle. Now its effectively as open as Myspace, bombards you
with ads, and as with all wide networks, the discourse has dropped to meme /
quiz bot level_

I think you mean "much lower" signal to noise ratio.

~~~
diegoperini
I'm a non native English speaker. Which one is more suitable for "less
quality"?

~~~
lou1306
Lower.

High SNR = Much signal, little noise

Low SNR = Much signal, much noise

~~~
chestervonwinch
> Low SNR = Much signal, much noise

Or, the reason I gave up fb -- little signal, much noise.

------
greggarious
I deleted my Facebook account two years ago (Valentine's day 2016). Before
doing so I reached out to my close/medium ties and exchanged numbers,
encouraging them to check out Signal as a way to contact me. Some of them
demurred (nothing to hide) but pretty much everyone adopted Signal after the
election, heh.

I don't have a huge amount of "friends" now, but I have a small group of
people I text or call occasionally. I feel happier and more connected than I
did using Facebook.

------
starchild_3001
Hey guys, don't believe in doomsayers.

Market (aggregate opinion of investors) is often smarter than each individual.

The market assigns a fairly healthy P/E ratio to FB. Similar to that of
Google. Both better than that of AAPL.

All in all, I'd ignore this dude's predictions. Facebook has a bunch of smart
people. Market is factoring in plenty of growth into FB's stock. Given
market's expectations, I'd bet this guy is wrong.

[https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/fb/pe-
ratio](https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/fb/pe-ratio)

[https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/goog/pe-
ratio](https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/goog/pe-ratio)

[http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/aapl/pe-
ratio](http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/aapl/pe-ratio)

(2018 was a special year due to a one-time write-off, check out 2019 and
beyond)

------
VHRanger
I mean Facebook has arguably reached all the audience it could reach.

The only way they could keep growing is the increase time spent on their
platform. That said Id conjecture the optimization towards short term reward
cycles (more clickbaity articles being recommended, etc.) loses customer
loyalty over the long run

~~~
IshKebab
Yes but the point is that it is now _losing_ people that it used to reach
because it's too full of advertising, shitty memes and fwd:fwd:fwd: tag your
friend in this if...

And they never really adequately solved the "my aunt sent me a friend request
and will be offended if I don't accept it" problem.

Everything I used to share on Facebook I now share on WhatsApp because it has
no advertising and my actual friends are likely to see it. Smart buy by
Facebook.

------
juststeve
social media has peaked? which sites are still growing in westernized
countries?

------
dannyr
This may be true for Facebook in the US and other developed countries.

Facebook is still making inroads in countries that are just getting
connectivity (like Myanmar).

Revenues will come from developed countries though so I'm not sure if Facebook
can sustain its business off developing countries.

------
0x7f800000
Anecdotally, I'm one of the people who walked away from Facebook this year,
due to exhaustion, disinterest, disgust, protest, or other (negative) reasons.
I don't miss it and won't be going back.

Amusingly, after about a week, Facebook started emailing me to try to entice
me to come back. So I logged back in to disable those emails.

------
SlowBro
What are the masses switching to?

~~~
namelost
The real world, let's hope.

~~~
bernardino
Yay for the real world!

I recently deleted almost all my accounts online, i.e. Github, LinkedIn,
Twitter. I only have this account left and few others which are for learning
purposes. I don't know for certain why, but I feel this need to be empty in a
sort of way and do away with the non-essentials: digitally, physically, and
internally, i.e. use the terminal instead of an ide, use technological devices
less and do more natural things, and stop interpreting things, respectively.

Though then again, I hope my nonexistent online presence is not a negative to
future employers as I complete my bachelor's in a few years. It seems if you
want to work for company x, you should be using product x. That's probably not
the case but it does seem like it.

~~~
lou1306
Well, at least an active Github account is a sufficient (but non-necessary)
proof that you have at least a basic understanding of Git. But still, there
are lots of ways to captivate employers: a good old coding blog can beat many
a LinkedIn profile.

------
LewYard
Are we talking about facebook.com the website, or Facebook the company ?

------
TeeWEE
I stopped looking often at Facebook. I don't like their upgrade and more
people are posting stupid things on the network. To be honest I don't care
about it anymore. Instagram, whatsapp and Snapchat have taken over most of
Facebook imho.

------
verstandhandel
I like the irony :D

"Eight reasons Facebook has peaked"

"please follow me on Twitter or Facebook"

~~~
marcosdumay
Well, "peaked" means it's as powerful as it will ever be.

------
zombieprocesses
Firstly, when did prediction and conjecture become news? Would be great if the
news industry stuck to actual news.

Secondly, lets hope so and lets hope that will finally put an end to the crazy
amount of hit pieces by the media on facebook and social media. Has anyone
older ever witnessed anything like this before? The media, both in the US and
the UK, has been obsessed with facebook and social media for past year. It's
like someone declared war on facebook/social media and ordered the entire
industry to attack them. The only thing I can compare it to is north korea's
media's rabid attacks on SK, US and Japan.

Anyone else "entertained/exasperated" by the media blitz against facebook.

~~~
dang
Articles don't have to be news in the narrow sense to do well here. They need
to gratify intellectual curiosity.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
zombieprocesses
I wasn't talking about hacker news. I was talking about the bbc.

I was asking why the bbc published a non-news story, not why it was here. I
was just saying the news industry should publish news rather than conjecture
or predictions.

~~~
dang
Ah I see! Well, you'd have to take it up with them, but the BBC publishes all
kinds of things.

~~~
gaius
_the BBC publishes all kinds of things_

Mostly "someone said something on Twitter" and "here are some more personal
opinions of Laura Kuenssberg". Their days of being a serious news organisation
are long over.

~~~
dang
That's a popular kind of thing to say on the internet, but IMO a good habit to
stay out of. From an HN point of view it's far from true:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bbc.co.uk%20points%3E10&sort=b...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bbc.co.uk%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bbc.com%20points%3E10&sort=byD...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bbc.com%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0)

