
Ask HN: What, if anything, will come after Facebook for human connection? - good_vibes
Based on all these headlines, people seem to be &#x27;catching on&#x27; or &#x27;burning out&#x27; of Facebook. I have been for awhile but I&#x27;ve almost given up hope as to anything taking it on directly or challenging it&#x27;s market position. At this point, it&#x27;s like trying to supplant Windows.<p>What are your thoughts? I don&#x27;t have much to say, I just want to read and reflect.
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FrozenVoid
I have a rule of thumb that i've developed over the years: anytime someone
tells or asks about X's killer, its a sign X is firmly established in the
market and will not go away anytime soon. When people actually start ignoring
X in favor of Y, then it changes: people just stopped talking about Myspace
and its flaws.

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kleer001
Now that's a delicious heuristic. Thank you!

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danblick
My thought: just because social attitudes change and something develops a
stigma doesn't mean that thing won't still be commercially successful for a
long, long time. Television, fast food and sugary drinks, over-sized cars,
telemarketing...

It might be that in 5 years, Facebook will be as popular in the Bay Area as
McDonald's is. I'm not sure that in that scenario Facebook won't still be a
strong business.

Don't get me wrong: I think we're due for a cultural backlash against the kind
of "information sugar" Facebook embodies. But I'm skeptical about how much
such a backlash would really accomplish.

Maybe you'll see some kind of "up-market" services emerge that cater to new
tastes (in this case: greater value placed on limited distraction/sustained
attention). What is the Whole Foods Market in this area?

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veddox
> What, if anything, will come after Facebook for human connection?

"If anything"? I can pretty much guarantee you that in 50 years (or 100, to
stay on the safe side), nobody will be using Facebook anymore. The question is
not "if" but "what".

Speculating on coming tech is risky, but my prediction is a two-way trend:
graphic and text-based communication. Email is one of the oldest computer
communication tools around (and basically a continuation of the millenia-old
practice of writing letters) and doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Text-based
communication is ideal for formulating complex ideas and offers low
storage/delivery costs. I don't know whether we'll still be calling it email,
but I'm pretty sure we'll still be writing some sort of letters in 2100. On
the other hand, private conversation is a lot more enjoyable when it is face-
to-face, giving the participants the opportunity to latch on to non-linguistic
cues such as voice inflection or facial expressions. Thus I would imagine that
some sort of telepresence communication platform is going to be pretty
important in 2100 (akin to Skype et al. today, though perhaps with elements of
virtual reality).

tl;dr Facebook as a company isn't going to stick around for ever, but letters
and visual chatting are here to stay.

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gdfer
facebook was great for helping human connection but obviously comes with it's
limitations. apps like facebook/whatsapp clearly expand the breadth of who we
can connect to and how often, but there's so much more to tap into when it
comes to human connection that text/photos won't do. the fact that you mention
"if anything" is almost a little depressing to me. surely technology will have
a lot more to offer.

video chat is another connection mechanism that provides more depth in ways
that text/photo sharing never will -e.g. it reaches more of our senses.

the next big thing will be something very different and the trick will be
getting it into every home. imo, it's clearly virtual reality related. i
should be able to put on a headset/glasses and and sit in my living room with
a friend and have that beer while chatting with them so it feels like they're
in the room with me. the more real this can feel the better.

i'd imagine google/facebook are already racing to find this next big thing
today. getting this into every home is the key. this is a race worth investing
a lot into imo. if someone else can beat one of these big companies to this,
they'll find themselves in position to surpass them.

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big_spammer
Why is it "clearly virtual reality related"?

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gdfer
i think that people are beginning to find these more shallow ways of
connecting less meaningful and while they will always serve a purpose, i think
that technology such as virtual reality will enable people who are not in the
same room together to connect with one another in more meaningful and real
(feeling) ways.

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patrics123
+1 for the VR "feeling transmitting Tech" thing.

however it might be a bit scary to use it in the long term I expect a short
hype like with Chatroulette or SecondLife because everybody wants to try it at
least one time but itl only stick with a few of those Initial Users and serve
a real purpose there...

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Mosi1
Facebook can be a force for good, if they remove people's currently trained
over-dependence on watching their like/view/reshare counts.

These artificial numbers applied to all social interaction, fuck society up in
all kinds of unexpected ways. These numbers are required to keep the
advertising revenues flowing and can still be collected and supplied to them
without causing social fabric damage.

The fallout and constructive handling of this mess is going to take a while to
understand and get right. That said I think Facebook and YouTube and Twitter
even though they are responsible for the mess, are also our best bets at
figuring this stuff out.

These aren't tech problems. These are social problems requiring expertise from
community builders, politicians, sociologists, ecologists, psychologist,
lawyers, journalists, law enforcement etc

I think the evolution/next stage of the social network will be driven by such
folk much more than the techie. The techie was required to create speed and
scale. That job is complete. How we use the scale and speed, understanding
it's positive and negative effect on society and utilizing it for the greater
good is something tech companies will be hiring a lot of non-tech expertise to
figure out.

I would like to see someone like Obama put in charge of Facebook to see what
is possible.

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chatmasta
Facebook is a basic utility at this point. The products that attempt to
"replace" it come in 4-6 year waves, reflective of the typical duration of
high school or college. A new social app arrives, and if it breaks some
initial barrier of discoverability (usually through growth hacks), it can
enjoy some initial success on college or high school campuses. Users naturally
arrive in four year cohorts. If the app has "staying power," the users will
graduate and spread it to their new networks. Unfortunately this is not always
the case.

Initial success for 4-6 years does not guarantee future success. Yik Yak is a
great example of an app with initial traction that failed to capitalize. Much
of that failure was attributable to product decisions. However, from the very
beginning, they were tied to a rock in rising tides. Growth of YikYak
benefitted from college culture, but the product itself became too dependent
on that culture, limiting its ability to spread post-college. As a result,
YikYak churned users as they graduated, and eventually there was nobody to
replace them.

Snapchat appears to be the most recent company with "staying power." College
campuses popularized Snapchat, but the product does not inherently depend on a
college community like YikYak did. People continue using Snapchat after
graduation.

When evaluating if a company will be the "next Facebook", you need to look at
its "staying power." Can it break the 6 year threshold? Once that happens, it
seems that public recognition and becoming a "household brand" is sufficient
to sustain growth until at least the 10+ year mark (or lead to acquisition by
FB [0]). For examples, see: facebook, twitter, instagram, whatsapp, youtube,
twitch, reddit...

The next question is, what makes facebook different from all those other
companies lasting 10+ years? How do you replicate that?

[0] Also, consider that we will never know how instagram or whatsapp would
have developed, had they avoided acquisition by FB, like Snapchat did.

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mattbgates
I'd think Snapchat was kind of the next best thing, which is short videos that
can be shared with friends. Most sources say that video is becoming "the
thing". Although I'd still say that unique readable content will still
dominate for the long haul, as it always has. I'm one to still prefer text
over video.

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adamb_
This topic is highly speculative, but my guess is something that's only
possible via another technogical wave -- perhaps AIs that post interesting
context of our lives on our behalf, or a new accessible medium better than
text / photo.

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meric
Does WhatsApp count, even though Facebook owns it? I use WhatsApp exclusively.

