
Ask HN: Is 2018 the end of Facebook? - edf13
Facebook is now getting so much negative press, is 2018 the year it will go the way of MySpace... a rapid fall off, a decline in minority?<p>Can Zukerberg turn things around?
======
non_sequitur
I keep thinking about this article[1] whenever I see bad press about FB
lately.

Relevant portion: "Murdoch hosted Zuckerberg at his Sun Valley, Idaho, villa
and expressed discontent with Facebook's News Feed algorithm and its handling
of news.

He requested Facebook consult publishing partners and be more generous sharing
digital ad revenue, or he vowed, News Corp executives would take their dislike
of Facebook public. He also hinted that News Corp lobbyists would take a more
aggressive stand against Facebook with U.S. regulators, as the company had
done against Google in Europe.

News Corp denied it would mobilize its journalists against Facebook, although
unnamed Facebook executives said they believed at the time that would happen."

It definitely seems that someone(s) is grinding their axes against FB, much
like the flurry of negative news that came out against Uber a year or so
again.

[1] [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/facebook-rupert-murdoch-
thre...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/facebook-rupert-murdoch-threatened-
mark-zuckerberg-in-2016-with-a-war.html)

~~~
smcl
Trying to decide who I dislike more out I News Corp and Facebook. I think News
Corp have actively done a good deal more "evil" than FB, while FB have mostly
been just sort of clueless or ambivalent about their negative effect on the
world.

~~~
jnbiche
> while FB have mostly been just sort of clueless or ambivalent about their
> negative effect on the world.

Sometimes clueless, sometimes willfully ignorant.

Both FB and NewsCorp have done immeasurable harm to our system of government.

------
mseebach
No. I think you're overestimating how much bad press Facebook is actually
getting outside the tech bubble.

Facebook is going to get done in by the fact that the younger generation
doesn't like it, but that process has been underway for a few years now, and
it will take many more years to complete (obviously offering Zuckerberg many
chances to turn the ship around).

~~~
ajb257
> Facebook is going to get done in by the fact that the younger generation
> doesn't like it

All the younger generation I know are big users of Instagram and WhatsApp -
both FB properties.

~~~
TomMarius
I literally don't know anyone who uses Whatsapp, only Messenger. These things
are very different across the world.

~~~
lucasverra
Whatsapp is the market leader in mobile (and desktop) IM in LATAM & EU. YMMV
but I would go with ~75-80%

~~~
TomMarius
Do they have more granular data? I guess they're more prevalent in Western
Europe (I read about people from Spain or Italy being all on).

------
kerkeslager
I really wish people would communicate better when talking about things like
this. The vague language being used here puts an artificial cap on how in-
depth answers to this question can actually be.

Facebook isn't going to literally end (i.e. go bankrupt and dissolve) this
year. It's too big to fail in that sense. Keep in mind that MySpace is still
around. I'm guessing this isn't the kind of ending you're talking about.

So if you don't mean literally end, what do you mean by end?

Lose their dominance? In what space are we talking about them losing dominance
(ads, social networks, something else)? Keeping in mind that for them to lose
their dominance in any of these spaces in 2017 a viable competitor probably
has to exist already.

Or are we talking about their markets shrinking? I.e. people realizing that
social media is toxic and quitting in droves to some arbitrary low point
(let's say, they lose half their active users)?

And in either of these cases, what would keep them from simply shifting
spaces?

I'm sure some intelligent conversations will come out of this, but that's only
because people on here will pick a possible meaning of your question and run
with it. There would be a lot larger of an intelligent conversation if people
chose their words for specific meaning rather than this clickbait-y silliness.

~~~
oblio
> Keep in mind that MySpace is still around.

More importantly, IBM "died" at least 10 times, Microsoft "died" at least a
couple of times. Big companies have a huge shelf life, even in bad market
conditions, if the management is half competent.

------
aylmao
A common theme I notice in the question and the comments; respondents are not
thinking globally or using numbers.

Just because in the US/Europe Facebook is getting bad press, or declining
amongst young users, etc. doesn't mean that's the case in other countries.

The US isn't even Facebook's largest market anymore; it's India [1]. Sure,
most money comes from the US/Candada region [2], but that's just now. As these
countries' economies continue to grow the amount of money Facebook can make
there will too. There's also strength in numbers; the US has around 300m
people, the world minus China and the US has 5,400m others.

If you wanna make serious analysis you have to look at the numbers too.
Facebook's active users worldwide aren't even stagnant; they are still growing
at a fairly constant rate [3]. 2018 is not even close to being the end of
facebook.

I see a ton of emotional and anecdotal comments here. The question itself is
itself, I'd assume, based off the recent discussions here on HN and news
articles around Facebook and Russia, and IMO written just to incite another
hot Facebook thread since I'd assume anyone could guess that a $500+b company
can't possibly die in 9 months. That's ok, but I am however surprised and
disappointed by the lack of statistics and analysis though. I would've
expected more from the HN community. I was hoping people here would like to
stick more with facts, numbers and a rational view.

[1]:
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/268136/top-15-countries-...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/268136/top-15-countries-
based-on-number-of-facebook-users/)

[2]: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-
average...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average-
revenue-per-user-by-region/)

[3]: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-
monthly...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-
active-facebook-users-worldwide/)

------
andrewl-hn
MySpace declined because Facebook offered a viable alternative at the time.
Today, out of all the alternatives the most attractive to the public is
Instagram, which is owned by Facebook Inc.

Besides, just as others said the impact of bad press is not that pronounced.
There's always bad press about it, and so far Facebook continues to dominate
the social network market.

------
Afforess
It's worth keeping in mind that most Americans are not news-addicts and do not
regularly read the news. For negative press to filter to the less-engaged
public, you would need continuous press for months at a time. (This is also
why it's a key political strategy to identify one bad news story about a
politician and beat it until it's past dead.) Until that happens, I am not
convinced this is bad for facebook.

The real question should be: do I believe Facebook will decline more than I
believe Facebook will sort of muddle through (like Twitter) or Facebook stages
some sort of recovery and return to grace.

~~~
bogomipz
>"It's worth keeping in mind that most Americans are not news-addicts and do
not regularly read the news."

What is the statement based on? Could you provide a citation for this or any
corroborating evidence that this is fact?

------
tammer
Facebook is extremely valuable to an enormous number of people. The _only_
thing that will end it is a non-profit competitor a la Wikipedia.

This isn't my idea, & I expect to see one of these emerge and take over in the
next 1-3 years.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I don't think that will help.

The problem isn't Facebook. The problem is _us_. People. Humans. We're too
prone to addictive behaviors. We're too prone to believe what we want to
believe. And at least some of us are too willing to exploit a medium to
manipulate the behavior of others.

A non-profit won't change any of that. People will still become addicted to
it; it will still propagate fake news; and people will still use it to
manipulate others.

~~~
Upvoter33
Sure, human nature won't change.

But when the incentives are aligned differently, the overall behavior of such
a system could indeed affect humans differently.

Right now, the goal is eyeballs glued to the page, and thus the algorithms
deep down find the most clicky/sticky things to put in front of your eyes.

If the goals were different, such a network might instead encourage different
behaviors, like actually not using the site very much, etc.

Probably the best thinking I've seen on this topic is from Tristan Harris:
[http://www.tristanharris.com](http://www.tristanharris.com) More info there.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
True enough. And if it's less addictive, so people are on it less, then maybe
there is less incentive for people to try to exploit it to manipulate users...

------
remir
A lot of people may be less and less interested in Facebook "the social
network", but a lot of them are still using Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram,
so FB is still huge and dominant in the social sphere.

~~~
Splines
True enough, but how much revenue is FB bringing in on these platforms? These
platforms all have alternatives and aren't exactly sticky. If FB turns the
screws to increase ROI, customers are going to leave.

~~~
remir
I guess FB has the advantage of being nearly ubiquitous in some countries.
With the amount of information they collect on their users, I bet they won't
have trouble monetizing their platforms in time. Some companies are already
using Messenger to interact with their customers. Frank & Oak is an example.
There's also WhatsApp for business.

------
thisisit
The negative press sure talks about evils of Facebook and some people might be
tempted to delete their accounts etc. But the question is - Does Average
Jane/Joe own the problem (or care) enough to delete Facebook? My opinion is
they don't. Facebook is still a way for them to connect with each other.

There are lot of bots in all the social media apps. So, Facebook might report
deletion of large number of fake accounts to show they are doing something.

------
searine
It's the end of young-people-facebook. FB isn't cool and hasn't been for
awhile now.

Old-people-facebook will cling to life because it is part of the media-
ecosystem now. So I won't expect a steep dropoff, but rather a slow gradual
decline in users as they literally die off.

------
cm2012
No. Their engagement numbers havn't taken any hit, and they own all the new
properties also.

------
HenryBemis
Short answer: unfortunately no.

Proper answer: I just saw their stock plunged 10%. And I use the word plunged,
because it created a gap (which I am super fool not to have taken advantage
from this and short their stock since I knew of the 50m users fiasco way
before NYSE opening). And although I do not appreciate, nor use FB, I do
undertstand that they serve a purpose, and as many note, the average Jo/Jane
doesn't care for privacy violations as "they got nothing to hide", and for as
long people abandon(ed) their right to privacy, then Facebook will be growing
stronger.

------
kerng
Its maybe a turning point around transparency and accountability, but surely
not the end. Facebook is so dominant in many areas (remember they own
Instagram, Whatsapp, Oculus) that we will have them around for the foreseeable
future. Even when talking about a potential replacement, nothing comes to mind
- in some sense it the perfect opportunity for a startup. Just gotta have that
great idea on how you make the user the user, and not the product.

------
bbg215
FB isn't going anywhere lol. The HN bubble is so much fun.

The recent swatch of negative press is just amplified 10x in the US because it
almost always revolves around Donald Trump being elected. If Hillary won and
this same stuff leaked it would be noted but die fairly quickly in the news.

Every old person practically lives on FB 24/7\. Most middle age people are on
there and will stay due to kids, family, etc. Millenials use Messenger,
Instagram, Whatsapp like crazy.

------
z2
What is the competitor threat or new rising star that will usurp Facebook's
position as a people-connector? LinkedIn? WeChat? Facebook was in super growth
mode by the time MySpace stagnated.

Or does "end" mean something else, if not measured in users? Is it the year
people realize that the idealized image of themselves and their thousands of
friends not worth maintaining or checking?

~~~
amorphid
Maybe it gets replaced by "micro-networks". Craigslist used to be the place to
go all my classifieds needs. Now it's a cesspool of spam, garbage, and scams.

~~~
aylmao
This is one of the things that has me split about Facebook. There is
essentially no anonymity on the platform, and some people even report needing
to verify their names with state IDs, which is a little much IMO (I was one of
those users).

Yet, this also means very little spam and garbage. There seem to be little
bots in the platform as far as I can see, and the few that send me friend
requests seem to be taken down within hours, as opposed to Twitter for
example.

------
chomp
No way, lots of companies get negative press and thrive. Facebook has lots of
capital to throw at buying up smaller social networks (see: Instagram, which
is still on the up and up for monthly users)

Many people honestly don't care about this data scandal or the other things
Facebook does.

~~~
stochastic_monk
I’m surprised Uber is still around after the persistent bad press. People seem
to just not care outside of my social circles.

------
markm248
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/22/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/22/facebook-
princeton-researchers-infectious-disease)

------
decebalus1
I dislike Facebook and everything it stands for but I don't believe this to be
the case. I think (don't have evidence) that what we're all seeing is a well-
crafted media attack on Facebook similar to what happened to Uber recently.

Someone is either doing a power play in order to prove a point (perhaps
Murdoch?) or actively trying to manipulate the stock price. It all starts with
a bunch of articles/opinion pieces and the rest of the media herd follows
because it's the trendiest thing to hate on and get traffic.

It will blow over soon enough. I think Google is next in line now as some
classic `law enforcement vs privacy` stuff started showing up.

------
drakonka
The only thing still keeping me on FB is keeping updated and in touch with my
cats' breeders. They like seeing photos of their kittens that we post, and I
like keeping up to date with what they're doing. We're not close enough to
send personal mails regularly, but are close enough to keep up with each
other's public posts on FB. If I can ever bring myself to sever this one
connection I'll take the step to delete my account. Until then I'll probably
just try to delete as much non-cat-related personal information as I can.

------
thieving_magpie
Besides negative press are there any tangible indications of a large decline?

Think about how many times you see a post like this on HN: "I barely use
facebook. I just keep it for <some random purpose>".

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
I think this is how it will end up. Rather than everyone sitting on facebook
all day (like we used to back in the noughties), people will keep their
accounts active, but only login occasionally, or for very specific purposes
(e.g. setting up events).

Facebook started off as twitter, then added the kitchen sink. People thought
they wanted the kitchen sink, but realised it wasn't worth the noise and/or
privacy/security risks. Twitter itself has suffered 'feature creep', but to
_much_ less an extent. Facebook does have the 'monopoly' advantage, so I can
imagine a lot of people will hang around out of inertia, but I also think that
other competitors to very specific subsets will arrive, just as twitter did,
and some will prefer to jump ship.

------
c1utch1
FB is in decline irrespective of the bad press. I hosted a party this weekend
and used a FB event to invite everybody and many people never even saw the
invite because they don't have FB on their phone anymore. I might start
sending text message invites or emails going forward. Even though they own
instagram, they monetize FB much better so a decline in FB is damaging to the
business. Other properties like WhatsApp, Oculus and Messenger are still are
in the early stages of monetization.

------
jonballant
No. I can tell you speaking to my family and friends that are part of the
"younger generation", while Snapchat and Instagram have grown in popularity
(both Facebook companies) every person within their social network still owns
their own Facebook profile. Furthermore it is still the standard to connect
people around the world. Ask any person who has made a non-professional
acquaintance while traveling to another country and I guarantee they will use
Facebook to stay connected.

~~~
agotterer
Snapchat is not owned by Facebook. FB does own whatsapp though.

------
roymurdock
No. spend any time outside the US and you’ll see the Facebook and WhatsApp are
integral pieces of tech used extensively for business instead of the more
photo sharing / news / groups way it’s used here.

Unless Facebook was discovered to be doing very illegal things I wouldn’t
count on anything changing, and even so they would potentially be fined and a
few people fired ala Volkswagen but IMO extremely unlikely to be broken
up/disbanded/sold/rebranded

~~~
dheelus
Can't upvote this enough. I was in India recently and Whatsapp is a de-facto
mode of communication over there, more than email or SMS.

Also, FB for promoting businesses just makes sense.

------
notananthem
I thought honestly last year it would die. I am on it, but my MBA program
posts all their announcements/networking on it. Would otherwise go through and
delete it.

------
antiviral
Here is an interview of a Cambridge Analytica data scientist describing how
they harvested and made use of FB data:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXdYSQ6nu-M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXdYSQ6nu-M)

------
ajeremias
Guide on how-to get rid of facebook (surveillance social/mass media)

[https://social.coletivos.org/@ajeremias/99704836594528204](https://social.coletivos.org/@ajeremias/99704836594528204)

------
matte_black
No. In fact now is a good time to pick up some more FB stock as it will almost
certainly rebound to the 190s when their latest “fiasco” is out of the public
spotlight.

FB can easily open new lines of business beyond social networking.

~~~
rainbowmverse
I doubt this very much. Google has proven that success at dominating and
monetizing one thing doesn't translate easily to dominating and monetizing
another thing.

Both are ad companies. Google got lucky with buying YouTube and Android on
search ad money. They haven't been able to translate that success into
anything else.

Facebook probably got lucky with WhatsApp and Instagram. Only time will tell
if they can do it again once those two start to collapse.

~~~
aylmao
One also has to remember Facebook is about a third the size of Google (25,105
vs 73,992), according to Wikipedia [1][2]. So if anything, unless it grows
more or focuses better it'd be hard to move into drastically different
ventures.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google)

------
beamatronic
If you truly believe this, short the stock and make yourself a fortune.

------
aylmao
Recent comment section with very similar discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16615282](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16615282)

------
anocendi
The events are in motion which will eventually culminate in long-awaited David
Fincher's sequel, "The Anti-social Network."

------
madman2890
The U.S. makes up a large part of facebook, but as someone living in south
america, it ain't going anywhere in this continent.

------
criddell
Where would Facebook users migrate to?

~~~
subbz
They're already. Especially the youngsters.

The new time waste machine is Facebook again, but with a different name:
Instagram.

~~~
criddell
Good point.

I love Instagram. It's the only social network I use regularly. I like
Twitter, but I use it in a read-only way and only check it maybe once or twice
a month.

Instagram though, is fantastic, at least for now. They are starting to ruin it
with ads though. I wish I could pay for an ad-free version.

------
always_good
Was it the end of Windows just because Windows 10 had some hoopla in the press
about analytics and its auto-update?

No, nobody cared. I mean, it was a meme that everyone made jokes about, even
late night talk shows. But nobody cared.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Poor analogy. Most people with Windows computers can’t simply switch to Linux
and expect their lives to be the same - they have file formats and IT
department setups to maintain - while most people could quit Facebook and see
no significant change in their lives, except perhaps for the better.

And yes, people do care. I work at a top tier U.S. university, and in our
college at least we have so far refused to update or support our Windows
machines past 7. Microsoft’s Windows 10 stumbles do matter.

~~~
beavis2
Off-topic, but..

> refused to update or support our Windows machines past 7

What's your long term strategy?

Is there a silver bullet?

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
No silver bullet to my knowledge, although it helps to know that we aren’t the
only ones who don’t trust 8 or 10, so Microsoft will either have to support 7
for a while or stabilize their later versions. Either way there’ll be hell to
pay if Microsoft ditches 7 without adequately stabilizing later versions.

------
xs
Myspace is still ranked 4,000 in top websites in the world. So I guess we're
still waiting for "the end" of MySpace.

