
Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year - rblion
https://www.recode.net/2018/2/12/16998750/facebooks-teen-users-decline-instagram-snap-emarketer
======
jasode
Facebook suffered from 2 waves of _" Eternal September"_[0]:

wave 1: the addition of _everybody_ outside your immediate friends and close
family. You get the goofy uncle, the distant high school acquaintances, and
all the work acquaintances from every previous job that submitted a "friend
request" that you didn't reject out of politeness. The newsfeed gets polluted
by nonsense such as forwarded memes, politics, and other junk.

wave 2: the corporate advertisers filling up the newsfeed that crowds out the
desirable posts from your real friends & family.

The 2004 to 2008 period was probably the "magical" time for Facebook from a
user standpoint. The initial wave of Harvard students had a beautiful user
experience with TheFacebook. As for the new members joining Facebook today in
2018?!? Not so much.

Of course, ads are needed to pay for the datacenters so any social network
like Facebook inevitably decays into a worthless waste of time.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September)

~~~
btown
Not to mention the erosion of the idea that it is default-safe to share your
social experiences with your group of "friends." Adoption by colleagues and
family shifts the tone considerably towards LinkedIn, where one's professional
image is paramount - and all that does is make the platform more stressful to
use.

Facebook does provide tools to segment one's friends into groups to whom
content can be privately posted, but from a UX perspective they're
deemphasized. I see a lot more social conversations moving to group chats
(some on Facebook Messenger, some on GroupMe/WhatsApp and the like), because
membership is determinate, you make the choice of target audience _before_
being prompted to make a post, and the context into which you post is not a
newsfeed (which we've been trained to think is global to an entire circle of
friends) but just that specific chat history. (I'm sure there's some
psychology/UX research in that people don't intuit that a "posting
destination" can be distinct from the list of content you're _viewing_.)

Chats are just a "safer space" to be oneself. And if Facebook wants to capture
one's true self and preferences, it will need to evolve beyond the idea that a
single newsfeed is the place people want to do that.

~~~
Pigo
I know this is one tiny use case, but it's one that's bothered me for some
time. I can't change my profile picture without it becoming a huge news story
for family and "friends" to comment on. I change a little picture of me,
remove the event from my timeline, and I still get hokey comments or messages
reminding me how bored and lonely everyone I know must be.

I severely miss when it was just a place to chat up a cute girl you seen in
college, or find out who's going to see NIN, etc.

~~~
zem
I can't comment on a friend's public post without it being broadcast to my
timeline! this is the one dark feature that has most affected any good
feelings I might have had towards facebook and my usage thereof

~~~
graeme
This has seriously reduced my willingness to comment on posts. Terrible
feature.

~~~
tgb
Absolutely. I don't care if they stumble across it but I never want to
broadcast a comment, at least not to people who wouldn't already have seen the
post. The worst is when public groups use Facebook as the only way to contact
them - I once posted a question about leaving a coat at an event and then got
a message from a friend suggesting that I hadn't invited him to the event (it
wasn't the kind of thing he thought it was, though). Why. Same for the profile
picture change. I accidently put my profile picture to the wrong one of two
and haven't changed it since I noticed a few days later that it was wrong and
was embarrassed to broadcast this fact to everyone not once but twice.

~~~
ryandrake
Wouldn't it make more sense to simply assume that anything one posts to the
Internet could potentially be broadcast to everyone they know and published on
the front page of the New York Times? I don't understand why people think the
content they post to a website will be kept private, especially if _not_
keeping it private maximizes shareholder value.

~~~
tgb
But the thing is, I don't think it maximizes shareholder value. I would engage
more with Facebook if my actions were quieter than if not. I don't really care
that anyone _can_ see it but broadcasting it is just crazy.

------
f055
I'm 34 and Facebook lost me as well. I can't remove my account as I need to
use as a developer, but I unfollowed everyone and my newsfeed is empty. It's a
bliss. Funny thing is, it's all Facebook's fault. Back in the days, the
service was simply brilliant to see what's going on at your friends, at home
and abroad. But when Facebook introduced the algorithmic newsfeed, the
usefulness ended. I could no longer see all the photos and posts my friends'
published. Now I had to rely on some weird algo - some friends were on my news
feed, some others that I wanted to see, were not. I saw many more posts from
pages that were irrelevant to me, much more reaction posts of my friends on
stories that I don't care about, and finally - lots and lots of sponsored
stories. Last year I got fed up with this mess, unfollowed everyone and now,
if I want to see what's up at my friends, I go to my profile > friends > new
posts and go to individual friends' profiles that I'm interested in. It's not
a nice experience, but it's better than the algo news feed. Another benefit is
that I use Facebook less and less. Interestingly, Twitter feed nowadays became
much more interesting for me to read - although I had to unfollow plenty of
mass-twitterers as well.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
Similar experience, I think my problem with the algorithm is similar to
slowing down to look at the car wreck on the side of the road.

I have a few a"friends" that post horrible stuff. Conspiracy theories, rants,
and other posts that are just symptoms of poor mental health.

At first I stopped to read these in HORROR and disgust, because they stood out
so much from the rest of my feed. Facebook takes that as a signal that this is
the content I enjoy, and begins to feature it more and more heavily.

Looking back, if I had understood what was happening, I could have used
Facebook correctly and worked WITH the algorithm. You have to think about the
long term consequences of your viewing activity, and think of using your
attention like farming to grow a good feed.

Facebook eventually needs to introduce a self-curation tool, so that people
can promote the things/people they want, and remove the elements they dislike
without Unfriending Grandma. For me it's probably to late. At 34 the college
friends that I would like to keep up with haven't interacted with me in 5+
years, and the social awkwardness of rekindling those relationships isn't
worth it.

On an unrelated note, I think many social networks will continue to die this
way. As people move from PEAK FRIENDS in colleges to having lives where
immediate family takes priority, I think the social presence will fade. The
networks will take the blame, like MYSPACE, and FRIENDSHIP just are not good
tools anymore, when really it was the person who went from having 100+ active
relationships to 20.

~~~
opportune
Facebook's algorithm almost seems like a quintessential example of why you
need to choose good metrics in optimization problems. Maximizing user
engagement sounds great - it means people are using your website and enjoying
it more, right? Turns out people weren't enjoying it more, they were using it
more because Facebook was shoving controversial content (e.g. dubious-quality
news, debates, crazy people) down people's throats and they couldn't keep
their eyes away.

You know how Facebook tries to get me engaged? It puts photos of my ex-
girlfriend and her friends on the top of my feed. Sure you're going to get me
to look, but I'm not going to leave the website feeling as good as when I
logged on. You bring up a good point about how you have to think about the
long term consequences of your viewing, but then I feel that you don't get a
genuine experience when you use the platform, and if Facebook wants this, they
seem to really over-estimate users' mindfulness wrt what they're actually
doing.

If Facebook never figures things out, I hope whatever network comes next
doesn't get greedy like they did. In particular, they need to focus on driving
engagement with _positive_ interactions and content.

~~~
cortesoft
But they get paid per eyeball, not by the enjoyment level of the people using
the system. They don't care WHY you can't keep your eyes away, as long as you
can't keep your eyes away.

From their end, their metric was perfect.

~~~
opportune
Perfect in the short-term, sure, but if people are leaving the platform then
their long-term eyeballs might be suffering for the sake of short-term
eyeballs

------
thestepafter
I signed up for Facebook recently after deleting my account 9 years ago. I was
banned within 30 minutes after updating my work history and a profile photo.
Submitted an appeal with my drivers license and passport. Unbanned in a couple
hours. Kept building my profile over the next couple days and was banned 3
more times. Submitted appeals each time with all the requested information.
Nothing malicious, political, or sexual posted, just the average guy setting
up a Facebook account. Been banned for over a month now, finally just gave up.
They never emailed me other than the initial welcome to Facebook email. Just
had to try my login every couple hours to see if I was still banned.

~~~
RodgerTheGreat
Sounds like facebook has a pretty effective scam for getting people to give
them driver's licenses, passports and untold other treasure troves of personal
information.

~~~
StanislavPetrov
Twitter has been using a similar scam for a couple of years now. After several
years of Twitter, my account was locked and they demanded my cell number to
"verify" my account. No thanks - said goodbye to Twitter and never looked
back.

~~~
tatami
It was funny because a fresh account worked for me until I confirmed my e-mail
address, then I was suspended until I gave them my phone number.

If they are so desperate to not have me as a potential user, then they can
have it...

------
graeme
Facebook should watch out with Instagram. It feels considerably more draining
now than it used to. There are messages, stories, suggested posts everywhere.
On the search feed I often end up in auto-scrolling videos.

These increase engagement and metrics. But, they produce an unwanted feeling
of compulsion where instagram didn't before. I've uninstalled the app for a
bit.

I never felt like that about Instagram before, but I remember first feeling
like that about Facebook years ago. If I'm right, what I'm feeling about
instagram is a prelude to others feeling the same. Instagram usage will first
go up, then down.

I don't yet have that feeling about snapchat, though the new design is
annoying. (Mixing in stories and messages)

Oddly enough, it has nothing to do with ads. I used to see them, back when
instagram felt fun. Now I don't.

~~~
freehunter
I have the same experience with Instagram. It used to show me interesting
stuff, now it shows me interesting stuff from a few days ago. And a few days
from right now, it will show me the interesting stuff that was posted right
now. No amount of checking Instagram seems to make the delay go away. Every
time I log in, the top of my feed is from 2 days ago. And I scroll for miles
and still seeing days-old content that I didn't see days ago.

~~~
delecti
Scroll until you see the first thing you saw the last time you checked the
app. Do that every time you open the app and you'll never see things from
before the last time you checked.

It's absurd that it's necessary, but it works 100% of the time for me since
they moved to non-chronological sorting.

~~~
adjkant
So THAT is how they artificially increase their DAU and use time - make the
user experience only tolerable if you essentially have to use the app daily
and be constantly updated.

~~~
delecti
Sure, but there's a certain amount of sense in that the fix for "I want to see
everything posted by the people I follow" is "go look at everything posted by
the people you follow".

------
padobson
Whenever I see a post like this on HN, I see the inevitable "the product
sucks" posts in the comments.

As an engineer and social media user, I completely agree, but it doesn't seem
to be bearing out in the marketplace. Facebook continues to grow[0] (if more
slowly).

So what is the HN audience to Facebook? Our we taste makers? A demographic
ahead of the product curve, predictive of Facebook's imminent decline?

Or are we simply irrelevant to the mass market? Are we the people going to the
art house movie theaters while the masses flood into multiplexes for the
latest Marvel sensory overload spectacle?

[0][https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/31/facebook-q4-2017-earnings/](https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/31/facebook-q4-2017-earnings/)

~~~
freehunter
The number of folks here and on reddit and even back to Slashdot who had and
continue to have negative reactions to incredibly popular things shows that
it's really hard for techies to predict what will become a success. I don't
think we're irrelevant or out of touch, I just think we really are in a market
all our own.

Look at the overwhelmingly negative response to the iPod, which then went on
to destroy CD players and every other brand of MP3 player, right up to the
point where people just used their iPhone for MP3s, when the techie audience
bemoaned the death of the iPod because their music library was too big to fit
on a cell phone, at which point the mainstream switched to streaming services
so no one noticed. Luckily there are still niche products catering to our
needs.

Look at the complaints about the iPhone with no multitasking and no physical
keyboard and no user-replaceable battery and no stylus, and the massive
success it had which ultimately killed Palm, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry.
Luckily there are still niche products catering to our needs.

Look at the complaints about the iPad, which killed the techie-favored
netbooks. Luckily there are still niche products catering to our needs.

My rule of thumb is, if HN/Reddit/etc hates it because it doesn't have enough
features, it's going to be a massive success in the mainstream market.

~~~
starpilot
And all the HN hate for the MacBook Pro touch bar and keyboard, while it sells
incredibly well.

~~~
twostoned
lol, Apple products in general. ;)

------
jliptzin
Started using FB in 2004 when there were barely a few hundred thousand users.
It was great as a college freshman going to a new place not knowing anyone and
needing to make friends fast and keep up. In my 30s now and have almost
completely stopped using facebook. I check in once every few months, usually
when I need to sign in because someone messages me there instead of email.
It's actually stunning to me that Facebook is lumped in with other tech giants
like Google and Amazon. If the services that google and amazon provide
disappeared tomorrow it would have a sudden and devastating impact on many
parts of my life and business. If facebook completely disappeared, I honestly
wouldn't even realize it for at least a couple months (until the next time I
check in) and even then I wouldn't care one bit. In all honestly I think it
would be an improvement to society.

~~~
roymurdock
Facebook is used differently outside the US.

When I worked at a telco in Afghanistan in 2014, Facebook was basically its
own utility - SMBs and individuals used Facebook (and their precious cellular
data) almost exclusively to message each other and conduct business. So much
so that the most popular consumer/retail plans for Afghans were "Facebook
usage plans" giving you X amount of data per month to be spent exclusively on
Facebook. Amazon/google have little to no power over there, facebook has a
ton. Ditto whatsapp.

I think you'll find this is true for almost any country where social ties are
stronger than the US, and biz is newer, or built around mobile/face-to-face
transactions - fbook is much more important than it is here as a photo feed
and news consumption hangout.

That said I agree for the US case and deleted my facebook ~2 years ago :)

~~~
wyclif
I've seen the effect you describe also in the Philippines and other developing
countries I've visited. Some Filipinos don't seem to realise that FB is just a
walled garden on the internet, not the internet itself.

Also, I think your second point contributes to this: mobile is huge in the
Philippines, they send more texts than any other country. And on top of that,
social ties are a lot stronger than those in America, especially familial
ties, with many siblings, cousins, etc.

~~~
dannyr
This is because of Facebook's Internet.org.

Facebook has zero-rating on mobile in the Philippines.

------
alex_young
How many users are just hanging on?

I use FB very occasionally for some events, but mostly never login. I get
nagging notifications about how much I'm missing, but it doesn't feel like
much.

I suspect there is a growing population of people with similar usage patterns.
Are we really monthly active users?

~~~
colanderman
I have three use cases that keep me there:

1) I'm in a couple specific regional groups that AFAIK have no non-Facebook
counterpart (though they easily could). I think Facebook does groups poorly,
but they serve the "non-technical community space" use case much better than
any other popular offering that I know of.

2) It's the easiest way for me to blast low-key questions/updates/etc. to most
of my friends and family. (I don't have everyone's e-mail address and even if
I did, e-mail is often too "active" a medium. Like sending a letter vs.
posting on a billboard.) Twitter serves a similar purpose but (a) most of my
network does not have an active Twitter account, and (b) Twitter and Facebook
serve subtly – but importantly – different social purposes.

3) Since the demise of XMPP and subsequent fragmentation of the IM ecosystem
into sundry walled gardens, some (a small minority) of my friends are most
readily accessible via Messenger. Strangely enough, SMS seems to have regained
footing in this space in my network.

~~~
DerfNet
>1) I'm in a couple specific regional groups that AFAIK have no non-Facebook
counterpart (though they easily could). I think Facebook does groups poorly,
but they serve the "non-technical community space" use case much better than
any other popular offering that I know of.

These used to be called "forums" and were very popular until Facebook invented
groups and murdered them all.

~~~
colanderman
Forums traditionally have been difficult for non-technical users to set up
(requiring at a minimum configuing and paying for a shared web host).
Certainly I don't recall any popular "managed forum" service pre-Facebook.

------
olivermarks
Regardless of user age, I have no idea what FB is 'for' anymore.

The whole egosphere thing of celebrating your latest life success with posts
is only ok for a small social circle. The idea of a captive user being fed
'feeds' has killed off that intimacy amongst friends in an already elderly and
visually sterile environment.

I have a FB account and around 1400 'friends'. I rarely post on the account
except to post articles about FB's shortcomings and in private groups about
old cars I own, which is a sort of useless unsearchable lightweight forum use,
a bit like the old AOL groups.

Why post comments about yourself to people you have only ever met online? The
only reason I can think of is for the self congratulatory ego boost...and
under 25's clearly don't get a hit off doing this on their grandpa's online
channel...

~~~
anigbrowl
I use it for two things, albeit on different accounts. For myself, I keep in
touch with a small circle of friends (20/~400) for personal stuff - family
news, similar sense of humor etc., and participate in a number of groups, in
much the same way I would on HN. Groups are where it's at, really. Oh, and I
follow some news pages on specific subjects. FB is generally a terrible way to
get news but an OK way to filter it to pick up high-quality content that might
otherwise get lost int he shuffle.

My other accounts are purely for research, social network analysis and so on.

------
rhacker
I HAD to sign up for an account - don't ask why. After about 1 hour of usage
trying to do what I had to get done, it REQUIRED a phone number for security
purposes. Seconds after I entered the phone number (for security purposes) I
was blasted by about 400 recommended connections including some ex-girlfriends
that I'm sure my wife would LOVE me to be friends with. Go facebook. I'm
guessing those people got notified that I was there too, but at least I was
able to delete the account.

~~~
netsharc
The other side probably got notified too. I remember seeing a peculiar name on
FB's "you might know..." list, I wondered where I saw that name before. I
looked in my mail inbox, and it's a guy who sold me something on eBay a few
years ago. I never gave Facebook access to my mail account, but what I'm
pretty sure happened is that guy did just that. FB saw that we exchanged some
emails, and said (probably to both parties): "Hey, be FB-friends with this
person!".

I wonder what the security implications are. I think a security researcher
added a lot of phone numbers into his phone and let Facebook read it, and
Facebook responded with names and faces of those numbers.

~~~
johnpowell
This happened to me too. There was a guy on Reddit looking for help setting up
Plex on a dedicated server. I run a small chat room and helped him out in
there.

But we did exchange a few emails. I use fastmail and he uses gmail. A few days
later he pops in the people you might know thing. At the time I did not have a
cell phone so I am assuming he gave the app access to his contacts or
something.

I think it is safe to say Facebook has a pretty detailed profile about you
even if you never made an account.

~~~
cmoscoso
Facebook can't even guess my name on emails I receive weekly about what my
“friends” are up to. They think my name is Martin Salum. ps: never used
facebook.

------
habosa
I'm 25, so right on the edge of the demographic mentioned here. I have been
using Facebook for 10+ years now, and I was pretty closed to quitting entirely
about 2 months ago.

And then suddenly ... my Facebook has been fixed. I had recently started
"unfollowing" people who annoyed me and also un-liking all brands. Facebook
has also done some recently algorithm changes.

A year ago my Facebook was a randomly-ordered stream of nonsense that was 80%
branded content and 20% of my most antagonistic "friends".

Now it's a seemingly chronological view of what my Facebook friends are doing.
If I leave Facebook and come back an hour later, it's basically the same feed
with ~5 new posts on top. This makes it something I can actually check and not
a black hole.

I hope they continue in this direction. They've got fantastic ad targeting and
if they keep users around they can probably keep their ARPU really high.

------
paulpauper
The typical Facebook user is now a middle-aged/older person with a lot of
disposable income. that is why the company is doing so well and why this loss
of young users is not a big deal. Also, Instagram is filling that niche, so
Facebook, which owns Instagram, wins either way.

------
dvt
FB seems to be on its deathbed. It's obvious that it's completely lost on
young users (18-25), and even young adults (25-35) are just about done with
it.

Serious question: is now the time to disrupt? What would the "next" MySpace/FB
look like? Ignoring techie "features" like decentralization, what do you think
_users_ actually care about?

~~~
dtech
Whatsapp, Instagram and Snapchat are already far in the process of obsoleting
Facebook and scooping up leaving and young users.

2 of those 3 are now owned by Facebook

~~~
adjkant
And how long until Instagram suffers the same fate?

~~~
code_duck
They have already been decreasing of the charm of Instagram by adding more and
more features… Basically, turning it into Facebook. In the large circle of
artists that I work in, a slogan that is being oft repeated lately is “make
Instagram chronological again”. I do use Facebook, but I don’t post much
content as when I do, it’s almost useless because they don’t show my content
to anyone. Instagram is increasingly the same way.

------
medyadaily
Facebook is one of the companies that banned the word Kurdistan on the request
of Turkish government. that means for Kurds in Iraq and Iran which unlike
Turkey, the word kurdistan is not only not banned but also legally is an
official federal region and official province name, we could not choose
Kurdistan as our hometown in the profile. I personally spent more than 10
years reporting this "bug" but it was never solved. later I found out it was
an internal guidance from facebook to ban the word Kurdistan. I am glad to see
such evil organization is going down the tube.

------
kawfey
Facebook still hasn't lost me and my group of 25-something friends, but we
have pretty much all turned off notifications, dabble in disabling our profile
every now and then, and only rationalize not deleting it for saying hi to
grandma, creating and RSVPing to events, and the ubiquity of Facebook
Messenger.

The only ones posting (or at least the only posts that facebook shows me) are
a mixture of advertising, extremely politically driven posts and links,
someone's birthday, and a random smattering of generic posts from friends with
whom you don't keep contact.

Our primary social media is group chats, texting, and snapchat, and reddit.

------
beamatronic
Reading these comments, I have a different perspective. My FB experience is
pretty much sharing my kid/pet/food/vacation pictures and looking at everyone
else's kid/pet/food/vacation pictures. This will continue until no one in my
social network has any of these to share or they start sharing them somewhere
else. In other words, my circle of friends will go wherever the "social
action" is.

------
ravitation
Facebook is a case study in revenue driven product design, especially in
comparison to user and purpose driven product design. It seems to me that
Facebook made the mistake of thinking that they were all one and the same.

~~~
fwdpropaganda
You can't seriously believe that someone like Zuckerberg isn't smart enough to
see the difference. My theory is he doesn't care what happens to the company
as he's already made his fortune.

~~~
ravitation
The tone of your comment aside...

Is it so hard for _you_ to believe that a group of corporate leaders can think
that doing something (a strategy) can serve their user, their purpose, and
their bottom line all at the same time, equally? It's probably one of the most
prevalent self delusions in the corporate world...

In fact, I'd argue that the smarter the group of leaders think they are, the
more likely they are to fall into said delusion... Since they'll think more of
their strategies...

In response to your second point... Considering a large portion of
Zuckerberg's wealth is in Facebook stock, and that Facebook also owns one of
its chief competitors... I doubt it.

~~~
fwdpropaganda
My point wasn't about whether the were doing it (I'm sure they were) but about
whether they were confused about it.

~~~
ravitation
Huh? Whether they were doing what?

~~~
fwdpropaganda
Optimising for revenue at the expense of everything else. They knew what they
were doing, they just didn't care.

------
RafiqM
Time and time again I see the complaint that people want a 'Most Recent' news
feed instead of algorithm-chosen and that's why they don't use Facebook
anymore.

This type of feed would be unusable for the vast majority of users.

Why? Because of Page Likes.

I struggled to find quantitative data on this, but I myself like over 600
pages, and I'm selective. Many people like over 1000.

With a Most Recent news feed, those hundreds of pages would be posting
multiple times a day vying for your attention.

100% reach, organic and zero cost? It's a marketers dream come true.

Add to that, I really only want to see posts from maybe 20% of my 'friends',
and I believe this to be representative of the average user.

"Curate your friends list and page likes!", I hear you say.

No. I'm not bothered unliking hundreds of pages and neither is the average
user. Not to mention, I did chose to hear from these pages for a reason. For
friends, it's mostly socially unacceptable to unfriend people even if you
haven't talked to them for a few years.

Hence, the algorithm that does the curating for me, because there's really no
other way around it.

ps. I'm taking some liberties here speaking for an average user. I welcome
data that shows I'm incorrect. The best I could find was from 2013 so is
irrelevant.

~~~
gaius
_With a Most Recent news feed, those hundreds of pages would be posting
multiple times a day vying for your attention_

Then people would simply only "like" things that they really liked and really
wanted to see. This is a non-issue.

~~~
RafiqM
They already like too many things. The action has already happened, your
suggestion would only apply for new users. And as I mentioned, I don't believe
people will curate their feed by going to the effort of removing hundreds of
page likes and friends. They'll just stop using it because that's too much
work.

------
rajeshpant
It is surprising that most folks reading HN are in some kind of bubble. I see
people here commenting how they have never used facebook since last X years
and they are fearful about facebook and privacy.

Are you kidding me? FB has 2.2Billion Monthly active users.

~~~
wepple
Really, it surprises you? A website tailored to typically well-educated people
with a strong interest in science and technology who all speak or can
communicate in English and put some kind of value in online discussion.

That’s already 0.00001% of the population, of course we’re a bubble.

The question is: is HN ahead of the curve with distaste toward FB, or an
anomaly? There’s another thread on this post discussing just that.

~~~
rajeshpant
Not necessarily ahead of curve, most normal people don't care about the feed
algorithm. They are happy to see what their friends and family are doing.

------
ZenoArrow
Article claims Facebook is losing market share to Instagram (with individuals
under 25). With that in mind, doesn't seem accurate to state they're losing
users.

~~~
ceejayoz
The same will happen (and is happening!) to Instagram. They've recently
changed Instagram to non-chronological "curated" feeds, and added a bunch of
ads into the mix. What used to be a very pleasant social network has become
way less enjoyable in recent months.

They also just (after years of resisting) opened up the posting API to some
partners.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "and is happening!) to Instagram"

That's not what the article suggests. If you have some stats to suggest the
volume of Instagram users is already on the decline, by all means post it.

~~~
ceejayoz
The same suckification cycle is happening (increasingly intrusive ads,
algorithm tweaks, "here's a pic from someone you don't follow", etc.). The
user decline happens later on in that cycle.

~~~
ZenoArrow
In other words, they're at the "will happen" stage rather than the "is
happening" stage (bearing in mind we're talking about their user base).

------
pgt
An ex-Facebook employee told me that to stay productive, developers unfollow
everyone and only use Facebook for events - it's too addictive otherwise.

My advice was: sell your shares, because developers are canaries for
customers.

------
anilshanbhag
Well this isn't as bad as it seems. I'm 24; almost my entire friend circle has
gone from using Facebook to using Instagram for posting photos and WhatsApp
for messaging. Still within Facebook ecosystem.

------
searine
Not surprising. Social networks grow when they are cool, and Facebook is about
the farthest thing from cool right now.

It got taken over by old people and companies looking to convert you to
brands/religion/politics, all of which might be a liability to
social/professional status.

------
utellme
The question for me is - will Zuckerberg wake up and realize that Facebook is
not a Google in terms of diversification and influence? CEO should have
strategy about his main asset, he shouldn't rest on his laurels.

------
ananab
Generally, it has become a cesspool of ads and useless posts by narcissists.
The site has allowed its fundamental value to be diluted by so many short term
money grabbing interests that there's no going back.

------
ChrisArchitect
If alot of those users are just hanging out on Instagram, has Facebook really
'lost' them??

------
krn1p4n1c
The US hasn't been the focus for several years. Africa/India/Asia were far
more important than sustaining US numbers.

~~~
Slansitartop
> The US hasn't been the focus for several years. Africa/India/Asia were far
> more important than sustaining US numbers.

I figured they were only important to keep of the facade of forever increasing
user growth. If North America and Western Europe aren't were the bulk
Facebook's revenue is coming from (and where most of its focus in placed), I'd
be very surprised.

~~~
krn1p4n1c
They are the bulk of its revenue, but my point was that average daily/monthly
were already peaked by most counters and growth markets were a higher
priority. Why do you think they paid so much for WhatsApp.

------
heedlessly2
Facebook for my peers is now used for official announcements by users.

1\. just got married/engaged

2\. accepted to MBA/Law/Medical/other grad school

3\. job offer from prestigious company such as McKinsey/Bain/ Google/FB/Apple

4\. DSLR photos of exotic vacations

either that or passive aggresive political viewpoints.

Snapchat serves a completely different purpose and has the daily "realness"
going for it

~~~
Apocryphon
Snapchat is micro-vlogging/live-streaming, Facebook is personal LinkedIn

------
adreamingsoul
I'm in my 30s and have also left Facebook. I requested my account to be
deleted but I doubt they did.

------
gerardnll
A friend of mine, cancelled the account 2 weeks ago. For months I was also
thinking about closing it too, so I finally did it after him. Few days after
having talked about it with an ex colleague, he also closed his account too.

The amount of useless information, the irrelevance of it, ads, privacy
concerns, the fact that you just care about your most intimate friends, and
not about that ones you connected in the beggining when you though 'oh look,
my friend from primary school!', most people does no longer provide
interesting content, just conversations about politics (not always sane
debates), photos to generate envy/pose... and realizing that Facebook just
does not give you anything good, just depression or low self steem... Also the
fact that when you are bored you just check social media instead of doing
something useful... All of this made me realize I had got to close it.

And I feel better, and I'm sure I would feel even better if I also close my
Instagram account. Nowadays I just keep the Instagram app on my phone. I also
got tired of toxic comments on Twitter and I check it much less often now.

I feel, one of the reasons we registered on Facebook was to be more social but
that ended up being the opposite and now we want to feel 'contact' again, and
you can only get that by physical interaction and real conversation, because a
postcard or a call has never been the same than a real conversation and a hug.

This is just the beggining. I've been on Facebook for 10 years, and I'm sure a
lot of millenials are starting to close their accounts, or at least they don't
even use it.

------
mettamage
Facebook has usefulness to me in three ways:

1\. As a public opinion board. I post a question on my wall and people answer.

2\. Chatting with my friends.

3\. One Facebook group where me and my friends are in.

This is my setup to not get completely sucked into Facebook:

1\. I changed my real accounts name to a fictional name that is related to my
name. I changed my lastname to a French version of it (my lastname is a noun)
and then I swapped my first and lastname. So anyone who Google's me on my real
name can't find me.

2\. I created a fake account with my real name and a modicum amount of friends
(at random) in order to not get detected by Facebook that it is a fake
account. I put the best pictures of me on this account. Now when people Google
me, they see nice pictures.

3\. My main browser has my fake account on auto-login. But it has my actual
account on the auto-login of Messenger. This means when I go to Messenger, I
can actually chat. And when I get nonsense (e.g. login with Facebook or sucked
into some feature of Facebook) I get my fake account. Since it has a modicum
of friends that I don't care about and nothing on it, there is not much I can
do.

4\. I set my main Facebook account on auto-login on my second browser. In this
way I can still write wall posts and post/read about stuff in my
Facebookgroup. Also, I installed a wall eridactor plugin.

I don't think I'll ever be able to completely get away from Facebook, but I am
trying my best to keep its use to the things I want to do with it.

~~~
leke
Facebook to me is that place where everyone is. I love reddit and have been
there about a decade, but I'm the only person I know there. If I meet someone
new, or join a local group, I can always catch up, or connect with them on
Facebook.

I think Facebook in general acts like a greedy business with data gathering
and over advertising. It's toxic in that respect. It's a shame something as
"open" as Diaspora didn't take off. I still think a new social platform might
still arise from something like a chat app (like WhatsApp), but ultimately
risk getting bought by FaceBook as they fear losing their stronghold in the
market.

------
mrguyorama
My biggest problem in using Facebook is that I simply have nothing worth
sharing. I never take pictures, and I talk to all my friends on a regular
basis, so posting things would be redundant. I've discounted Facebook as a way
to meet people. I purposely avoid using a desktop to access Facebook on the
once every few months occasion where I need to copy-paste anything from my
group chat with highschool friends. I just don't see any reason to strengthen
my account on the platform

------
Unkechaug
How many of these users simply aged out of the demographic? I wouldn't be
surprised if it's just a combination of people aging out and not too many new
users signing up.

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
That was my first thought, too.

How many of the "users under 25" simply turned 26?

It's like an old article I saw somewhere about teen pregnancy dropping heavily
once they reach 20 years old...

------
swlkr
I deleted FB a few years ago, I’m surprised how bad it’s gotten. I’m not
surprised that more people are either just not logging in anymore or just
occasionally.

~~~
Caveman_Coder
I deleted my FB a few years ago too. I ended up getting back on and only
connecting with close family that live out of state. I don't follow any brands
or watch any corporate content either. I still find value in it because I can
see the cool pictures my sister posts and quickly send out family updates. I'd
never connect with casual friends from college or co-workers though.

------
jostmey
I log into Facebook about 6 times a year. Each time it is a waste of my time

------
aws_ls
Yep. My anecdotal example. My elder one, created an account as soon as they
turned 13. The younger one, couldn't care less. Meanwhile sometime few years
ago, I also deleted my FB account. My God, there are only a few tech products,
I hate as much.

Lot of solutions on offer. But IMHO, only one thing will fix it. Forcing it to
open its protocol. A mail++ (for social) which will just allow all the
products to compete in the open. They can compete on UI, the feed sort
algorithm etc, among other things. Nobody will hate on Facebook as much. Its
market cap will go down, but Zuck can sleep better.[1]

[1] “I don’t think he sleeps well at night,” from
[https://www.wired.com/story/inside-facebook-mark-
zuckerberg-...](https://www.wired.com/story/inside-facebook-mark-
zuckerberg-2-years-of-hell/)

------
overgard
I'm 32. I'm at the point where I'll update my facebook about once a month just
so it doesn't look like a total ghost town if someone adds me, but otherwise I
just stay away from it.

I find that the structure of it encourages people to post things that just
appeal to the lowest common denominator. My feed is full of trite positivity
memes and cute girls taking selfies and saying stuff like "Coffee with
friends!" It's.. fine? I just don't feel any connection to other people when
I'm on there, and I don't really feel free to actually state real ideas or
opinions, so it barely even feels particularly "social" to me. It's just a lot
of people acting as their own PR department mixed with a lot of people patting
each other on the back.

------
MikeTLive
Facebook stopped being about friends and has become groups. Sharing is not
between friends but between interest-groups.

the worst is when your friends share garbage, and you view it, you start to
see more garbage suggested to you. you can't "un-see" anything. the algorithm
knows.

------
AndrewKemendo
Didn't they plan for this with the acquisitions of Instagram, Whatsapp, and
most recently tbh?

They know the particular property of facebook.com can't last forever, so they
go where the users are going. Last I checked Instagram is the hottest app out
there for anyone 35 or under. As of last year at least Facebook, messenger and
Instagram were each still in the top 5-10 most used apps.

I feel like people somehow don't see facebook as the digital conglomerate that
they are and focus on what is happening on facebook.com as though it's a
harbinger of the rest of the company.

Also, IMO they have the best Machine Learning (specifically vision) team on
the planet and are consistently making amazing tools open source. That alone
is worth a lot.

------
ictoan
I'm in my 30s and I use FB a lot to keep up with my friends. However, I have
notice that my younger cousins in their 20s never post. So... where do young
folks go these days? Instagram? Twitter? Snapchat? I guess I need to talk to
my cousins more and find out.

~~~
pwinnski
Instagram and Snapchat, for the teens and 20s I know.

~~~
hardtke
My market research (teenage kids) indicates that Instagram is their platform
of choice.

------
Slansitartop
Here's another good HN post from today about Facebook that didn't seem to get
enough traction:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16358148](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16358148)

------
RandomCSGeek
The masses generally follow whatever is trendy. People initially followed
facebook, and when Whatsapp and Instagram came, they followed them. FB is
going through it's natural life cycle, and we will see it desperately trying
to survive as it's stats get negative and shares dwindle.

This is problem with any service where users care about userbase. For netflix,
userbase is not a concern for users. Hence such services are more likely to
survive long term, as long as they keep themselves relevant.

FB, Whatsapp and Instagram however, are destined to die very soon(I'd bet a
lifecycle of 2 decades). Users are eventually going to move on.

------
oblib
"12- to 17-year-old demographic declined by 9.9 percent in 2017"

I'll offer those numbers are related to their parents already being there.
Those kids will probably sign up or come back when they get a bit older.

~~~
err4nt
Why would they sign up…ever? What's the value proposition? Will their parents
have left in a few years?

When I joined Facebook (~2006/7) there was a very clear value to me: my and my
college classmates could send messages, collaborate, and organize events.

Now it seems like a wasteland, I really have no idea how I could put Facebook
to work for me, and since not everybody I need to collaborate with it is on
Facebook (some are very opposed to it) it's useless as a platform for
organizing events compared to other event-planning platforms. Why would
anybody ever need Facebook?

~~~
anigbrowl
Groups. there are tons of groups, open, private, and secret, and it's easy and
handy to build/organize a small community on there than through X or Y private
forum website that people have to log in separately to. People frequently try
to build groups up to a critical mass and then move them off FB for privacy
and/or profit, but most people are in multiple groups and there's no
discernible advantage in moving to a different platform for semi-casual
socialization. That's why lots of other social networks for subgroups launch
to great fanfare and are then deserted 6 months to a year later. They just
don't have enough critical mass to overcome Facebook's network effect on a
permanent basis so people keep going back to FB because that's where everyone
else is for many practical purposes.

------
jedisct1
Facebook is about sharing memories, and "static" content. One can use Facebook
to read the same "group" that has been around forever, or to looks at memories
from the day/week/month/year.

As a result, it's a good fit for people who are only occasionally online.

Everybody else wants to live share what's happening right now. Whatsapp is
great for this, as it allows instant group chats with ephemeral ad-hoc groups.

Instagram is great to share what just happened, without a UI polluted with
older and unrelated content.

------
ben_jones
Is this for _deleted_ users or a marked drop in user activity. Because it
takes concerted effort to actually delete a profile and have it remain
deleted, it would be a much stronger signal of the platform's decline.

Six years ago when my classmates and I applied to college we were changing our
profiles to make them not appear on potential searches by admissions offices.
This including faking names, pictures, etc. To me that was the moment Facebook
became something I didn't want to be a part of, fake etc.

------
johnnydoe9
This explains the text message me and a friend received today.

[https://i.imgur.com/ErvNLOc.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/ErvNLOc.jpg)

------
oflannabhra
I have a theory: Facebook's biggest problem is that it gives people what they
want, but what people want is _not_ what makes them happy. Algorithmic
recommendations are tailored to capture people for as long as possible, but
the short-sightedness of "engagement" erodes the long-term benefit for the
user. I think this applies to YouTube as well, or other algorithmically
generated "feeds".

~~~
marcodave
> Facebook [...] gives people what they want, but what people want is not what
> makes them happy

I have a feeling that Facebook is following the same decline of generalistic
TV, which, similarly to Facebook \- contains mostly ads and
crappy/shocking/debatable content \- its userbase is becoming more and more
elderly \- teens start to snob it and move on to the next cool thing \- people
get bored of it and decide not to bother with it anymore

------
temporallobe
This just demonstrates FBs switch to a different demographic. The user base
has actually increased according to TFA, but it doesn't say which age group. I
am betting the over 55 crowd, judging by the number of political and religious
posts on my feed.

Yes, I still have an account but I have removed all personal information,
pictures, and deleted all my posts. I also go months between using it. I can't
bring myself to totally remove my account though.

------
nicky0
Facebook is indispensable for me because of groups. A group for my running
club, a group for my cycling club, other local groups. All activities are
coordinate using FB & Messenger.

However I also have a zero friend policy on Facebook. Having zero friends,
plus the "only friends of friends can send me a friend request" setting, means
nobody can send a friend request. I suggest you try it, it's glorious.

------
batmansmk
eMarketer has been taking this kind of angle for years to get some audience:
[https://www.recode.net/2017/8/21/16181348/teenagers-
millenni...](https://www.recode.net/2017/8/21/16181348/teenagers-millennials-
users-facebook-instagram-snapchat-emarketer)

The thing is that FB is actively tranferring the teens to Instagram and the
overall audience is growing so...

------
wyclif
_That explains why Snapchat and Instagram, which offer features for sharing
photos and videos that disappear, are growing in popularity among this
demographic_

Instagram is owned by Facebook. That's why I don't think Facebook is worried
about migration off the parent app, they can just spin off endless trendy
social apps and market them to target demographics under new names.

------
garganzol
Never signed up on Facebook. I always treated that offering as a convoluted
waste of time. Personal preferences aside, I always wondered what happens to
Facebook posts 1 month after publishing. They usually look like something (at
Facebook?) scavenges pictures, photos and makes them 404. It moves so fast and
breaks so many things, literally.

~~~
RandallBrown
My photos from 13 years ago are all still there.

------
jonbarker
Basically all social networks with real names are an extension of one's
professional brand. This is not good for facebook in its efforts to attract
kids because 1) what parent wants to sign their kid up for a permanent
professional brand and 2) what kid is thinking about their professional brand
anyway?

------
DenisM
Facebook will have lost the game when no one here will care enough to comment
whether Facebook has lost the game.

------
harlanji
Funny timing, I am deleting my account now. Decided on messaging, cropped
friends, posted notice, and am messaging and unfriending individuals after
short convo. It's been kinda fun. Own-domain email setup, and page with my
name in meta tags for search engines. I'm 33 and "immature" fwiw

------
propman
A commenter here told me that it's now possible to delete Facebook while
keeping messenger, so that's what I did. Don't miss it at all.

Agree with other posters that it's annoying how anything you like or comment
on is broadcasted to your entire feed. Makes you not want to comment or like
amything.

------
etrautmann
For all of those people saying that FB is dead, perhaps their core product is
in decline among younger users, but that does not seem to be true for
Instagram or Whatsapp. Those acquisitions seem to extend FB's fingers to the
demographics that their core product is losing.

~~~
remir
I guess the next question is; how long until both Instagram and Whatsapp
alienate their users and they switch to the "next big thing"?

------
BlackjackCF
I think at this point, between Facebook Messenger and Instagram, I don't
really use Facebook for anything else other than events.

If Facebook spun out its own events app, I would probably stop using Facebook
core altogether.

~~~
dkasper
They have that. Facebook Local is events + places.
[https://www.facebook.com/local/](https://www.facebook.com/local/)

------
mcs_
Over 36 here.

I keep post my position in this kind of news. I never used it. I will never
use it. It will close before I will use it.

I could consider to use it if hired or paid to test it.

------
anonytrary
Ha! They lost me when I was 18. I dunno about your moms, but my mom taught be
not to share all of personal information with everybody in the world.

------
cowmix
My kids who are 19 and 15 barely care about Facebook. My oldest uses
Messenger, but that's about it.

Twitter OTOH seems to appeal to both of them, still.

------
dboreham
Facebook is becoming like how things would look if you did the wrong thing in
SimCity: a dark gently smoking urban wasteland.

------
ktaube
I wonder how many users are still on Facebook just because it's the only way
to authenticate in Tinder.

------
iddan
These analytics are really dumb considered Facebook Inc. still holds these
users in Instagram...

------
rmajere
I never post on fb because it insists on posting my every move to the
world+grandma

If only it were a little less social

------
petraeus
Facebook has turned into a platform to spam you with ads no wonder their
losing marketshare

------
internetman55
hmmm I don't really look at facebook more than once every few months for like
2min. I have fb messenger to talk to my friends and I don't really care about
what goes on on the real site

------
GCU-Empiricist
Anybody know a worthwhile open source social network alternative?

~~~
askafriend
A viable alternative requires your friends and family to be on it.

So there is no viable alternative for most people - decentralized or
otherwise.

~~~
xj9
invite them to join then? mastodon has some great apps. if you have the skills
you could even set up an instance or two for your friends/family to meet up
on.

it won't work for 100% of the people you know, but it isn't that difficult to
get a few friends to try a new app/service.

even if you can't/don't know how to set up an instance, there are hundreds of
public servers that you can join. honestly, the only excuse is that you don't
want to put yourself out on a limb.

[https://joinmastodon.org](https://joinmastodon.org)

~~~
askafriend
> invite them to join then?

I'm sorry but I'm not going to spend my personal time convincing hundreds of
my contacts to move over to a random service called Mastodon. I've got better
things to do with my life. I'm going to use Facebook as a tool and move on -
as I'm sure the less vocal majority are doing.

There is a philosophical viewpoint and a practical one. I choose the practical
one.

~~~
xj9
> hundreds

lmao ok like this is an all or nothing situation. my response should have been
prefixed with _if you care about promoting alternative networks you could..._
(which is what OP was asking for), mastodon is the largest one right now.

i think SSB has a brighter future, but it isn't production ready quite yet.

"practical" as in, what you think is best. it _is_ practical for me to invite
people to promote decentralized social networks because my community is
competing with the facebooks of the world for attention. your "impractical
approach" is my "guerilla marketing strategy".

~~~
askafriend
I completely get your perspective but you also made my point for me.

I'm not looking to promote any social network or philosophy. I'm simply
looking for a modern tool with which I can contact my friends and family that
live in different states and countries in an efficient way. That's it. And I'd
bet this is also the case for a majority of people.

I get that if you want to start a niche community or small groups for special
interests, there are tons of other ways to organize. For example, Discord for
gaming.

But at the end of the day, even those who use Discord a lot and are heavily
involved in gaming communities will still have a Facebook so they can connect
with the random person they just met at a party, or send photos to their
grandma.

~~~
xj9
> you can't win until you've won

------
yummybear
It's a good start, but there's a long way to go.

------
pankajdoharey
I hope this is the beginning of the end, of an era.

------
poisonarena
sucks, cuz it was a good idea in the beginning.. also got me some girlfriends
over the years..

------
olfactory
Facebook clings to dark patterns that surely appear to be "working" in the
sense of generating engagement and ad spend.

The problem is, younger users have a much better intuitive sense of those dark
patterns because they must develop street smarts about how they can be misused
(cyber bullying, revenge porn, deepfakes, etc.)

I don't see how any responsible parent could put a video of his/her kid on
Facebook when it's just a simple download away from being turned into
someone's perverted deepfake, bullying fodder during junior high, etc.

In fact I'd argue that it's irresponsible stewardship of a child's future
online autonomy for a parent to post any pictures or data that could be easily
misused/abused by his/her own Facebook network. This means pretty much all
pics and videos.

If this sounds silly, consider that Facebook makes deleting pictures one has
uploaded _a significant chore that requires 10x the number of clicks it ought
to_.

When I think about deleting some of the old pics I've uploaded to FB that I'd
rather take down, the thought of dealing with all the dark pattern speed bumps
trying to make it difficult underscores the outright hostility Facebook feels
toward its users.

Recently Facebook had a bug where any Instagram account that had been linked
to a Facebook account magically got the Facebook user's profile photo. Even
this is a crass disregard for user privacy. Instagram is used much, much
differently than Facebook and it's completely unreasonable to expect a user to
wish to use the same profile photo.

Young people are just a bit more savvy than the rest of us because their
peers/foes/etc are more likely to have had the time and inclination to do
minor mischief that Exploits Facebook's defaults. Younger users prefer
Instagram or Snap largely because the privacy settings are less opaque and
fewer dark patterns are used.

This is probably why Facebook bought Instagram, and why Facebook has allowed
the younger users to leave... The revenue generated by milking the older users
must outweigh the value of having the younger users. After all, Facebook could
easily create a linked Facebook account for all Instagram users and role out a
new privacy pattern geared at the preferences of younger users if doing so
would result in profit.

But as it stands, younger users are happy to engage with Instagram and
Whatsapp and Facebook is not throwing away any of the behavioral profiling
data, so eventually when the platforms change/evolve Facebook has lost
nothing.

Analogously, Facebook isn't wasting time feeling hurt about users not loving
its namesake platform. The company is far broader and more encompassing than
the namesake app. If you are using a Facebook owned product and generating
data in it, you are helping move ad inventory and doing your part to help
Facebook make money.

