
Parrying the Latest Predictions of Facebook’s Demise - joe_the_user
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/technology/debunking-the-latest-predictions-of-facebooks-demise.html?_r=0
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joe_the_user
Facebook seems to me to be very slowly fading - fewer and friends in total
take part.

The sad thing is that I see any specific replacement. No other social network
has the same "public sphere" quality and whatever Facebook's other qualities,
I miss this

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mgav
As Facebook grows and monetizes, it's diluting its core attraction -
interaction with friends and their photos and videos

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joe_the_user
Honestly I don't think that's what's happening.

I don't find my Facebook experience more disrupted. There was a time when ads
started appearing on my feed. And they stopped again.

I get the impression Facebook is highly attuned to how much engagement it gets
and does everything it can to keep that high.

I think the problem is more just the problem you get being at a party with
interesting people for a long time. No matter how interesting the people might
be, you get tired of them after a while.

Moreover, the process of disenchantment and disengagement happens at a
different rate for different people. And because Facebook works hard to engage
the people who are engage-able, you get an effect where some people have left,
some people at the door hoping for others to shut up so they can leave and
some people are happily engaged with the remainder of the party.

And it seems like longer term, the process of disengagement will only increase
because the division between those "still at the party" and those who have
left will tend to breed antipathy.

Oddly, I think you also have a division between those who post photos of
themselves and those who post little comments and links - good looking photos
are hard to maintain and so the photo part only happen occasionally. Snark can
happen often. And so you the splitting of social groups.

And this is a social experiment, more or less, effecting millions of people
today.

