
Facebook May Lose 80% of Its User Base by 2017 - adventured
http://www.vocativ.com/01-2014/facebook-will-lose-80-user-base-2017/
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rpedela
What? How is Facebook like an idea or an illness?

The problem Facebook solves is a problem we humans have had for thousands of
years: how do we stay in touch with our friends and family? Facebook has made
staying in touch much easier and simpler than any method before it. I don't
see Facebook's demise until something else comes along to make staying in
touch with friends and family even easier.

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ams6110
Humans haven't had that problem for thousands of years. For thousands of years
our friends and family were mostly our neighbors if not actually living in our
households. You could argue that Facebook and social media in general has
perverted the notion of what a "friend" is.

~~~
rpedela
Of course we have. Soldiers going off to war. Marriages between two families
in different towns or countries for political or economic reasons. Moving from
the country to the city in the hopes of a better life. Becoming a travelling
merchant. Etc.

Maybe the need was not as great as it is now, but the need certainly existed.

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ransom1538
I built a few large scale viral games at zynga, crowdstar, etc. These games
eventually exhibited the same strange behavior. They would stop growing - then
start a quicker decline into nothingness. We tried every thing: features,
advertising spend(s), focus groups, etc.

Once all your users' friends and contacts have been exposed to your game -
growth becomes impossible. They either didn't want to try it or tried it
(immune / infected). Once you have peaked, people with the least interest
begin to leave. The scary issue is that people with moderate interest are
effected by this group of early leavers. Then moderately interested users
start tapering off. This begins a very quick death circle.

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chaz
This study is based on a couple of very shaky assumptions. The first is that
they're modeling the decline of Facebook on the decline of MySpace, and
assuming that their traffic/popularity curves are similar. I think the two
sites are completely different animals and all comparisons became invalid when
FB launched their app platform in 2007. Maybe when they launched their News
Feed in 2006.

The second is that they're basing it on Google Trends data, which is obviously
based on searches for Facebook. With the enormous shift to mobile and users
going directly to the app, I think that throws a serious kink in trying to
apply 2007+ trends to 2014+.

[http://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.4208v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.4208v1.pdf)

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doubt_me
I wonder how it would turn out if they just asked facebook for the data
instead of google trends

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debt
People are foaming at the mouth, waiting for and wanting Facebook to fail.

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doubt_me
It already has in my book.

There is absolutely nothing visionary about it except that its a really nice
cash cow.

I don't expect it to last through 2015. 2017 is way to long

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waterlesscloud
Why does it need to be visionary to survive?

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doubt_me
In order to make sure that their stocks stay as high as possible for as long
as possible.

I would invest for sure if there was such a thing as Facebook X labs.

But nope lets go with timeline

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debt
They have an AI lab.

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schtinky
When we all first joined Facebook, we were hit with an exciting torrent of old
friends we'd lost touch with, especially old hookups/romances that suddenly
became possible again. This was like a pathogen entering a fresh population of
potential hosts.

Then, over the past 6 years, we explored all of those new possible
relationships and took them to their conclusion. But now there's nothing left;
like the pathogen killing off all its hosts and having nowhere else to go.

In order to survive, the population has to create new hosts faster than
they're being killed i.e. Facebook would have to generate new connections for
us at a faster rate than we can explore them. I don't think it comes anywhere
close.

In this sense, it definitely has biological underpinnings.

~~~
yaeger
>In order to survive, the population has to create new hosts faster than
they're being killed

I don't think that's true. Why do there need to be new connections for you to
go through? What you just described is the equivalent of setting up your
contacts list from scratch. Say on your phone. You get a new phone and now get
to re-add all the people you know or knew. Because you want to stay in touch
with them.

Once that is done, does that contact list of yours also "die out" because
there is nothing new to add on a regular basis? I don't think so. You just
finished building your initial contacts. And you know what happens then? You
start to use it. On a regular basis. It is a tool you set up and once it is
set up you use it. Simple as that. And that is the same way you can use
Facebook. Once you added all the people you want to stay in contact with you
can do just that.

It all boils down to how people actually use Facebook. Do they use it like a
tool as I just described? Or do they merely play the game of "Who can collect
the most "friends""?

I use it as a tool. I have my real friends on there. I don't have 300+ people
on there just so when I post something I can marvel at the multitude of
"likes" to get some kind of gratification through it. And as long as all those
people continue to use Facebook I can continue to keep in touch with them this
way. Even past 2017 or whatever date these people have calculated.

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doubt_me
[http://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.4208v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.4208v1.pdf)

Full study for anyone interested

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JoshGlazebrook
Hasn't Facebook not only surpassed MySpace in peak popularity, but has lasted
(usage wise) quite a bit longer than MySpace? I feel like MySpace never
actually tried to significantly innovate and change itself (in its heyday)
while Facebook has iterated significantly multiple times since I've been using
it.

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staunch
It's also true that the planet Earth may lose up to 100% of its users by 2017.

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prlambert
What are the odds that the people behind this are shorting FB?

There's no shortage of sensationalist stories about public companies – even a
tiny bit of price movement can be leveraged for big gains.

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desireco42
Or may not :) The way things are, they will either be stable like google and
they are going in that direction, or completely dissapear.

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GnwbZHiU
2017 is still a long time in the future. More than enough time for them to
innovate.

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scg
Linkbait

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ISeemToBeAVerb
Exactly. Why else quote a study that the author readily admits is faulty?

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tiagobraw
... or may not.

