from Hacker News

Is Facebook dying?

by catastrophe on 9/20/12, 5:31 PM with 73 comments

by jonnathanson on 9/20/12, 6:38 PM
It seems a little hasty to proclaim the death of Facebook based on a sample size of two kids. In fact, when I worked in marketing, I used to dread statements from leadership (or whomever) that began with "My kid was doing X, so we should get into X," or "I heard about Y on the radio, so I wonder...," etc. Dangerously flawed assumptions can come from this line of reasoning.
Anecdotal samples can be useful to form hypotheses, however, and in this case, I don't think the hypothesis is out of the question. My own anecdotes, be they personal, from friends, or from co-workers, seem to be indicating a very subtle paradigm shift in social networking. It's not so much that users are abandoning Facebook, or abandoning social, but that users are segmenting themselves by use case (or worldview, as the wonderful Amy Hoy would probably describe it).
The world seems to be dividing into People Who Use Facebook Every 5 Seconds, and People Who Use Facebook About Once a Week, with perhaps some other segments of significance within that spectrum. But "seems" is the operative word here. I'd need to look at actual usage data to make any real assumptions here, and my guess is that Facebook isn't going to share data that contradicts its own growth projections.
by stevenj on 9/20/12, 6:05 PM
Several of my friends have quit Facebook. Many on multiple occasions.
Nearly all of them have eventually come back. Many of them multiple times.
I think the ones who are still gone will come back sometime.
Some inevitably won't.
But I think the number of people who dislike Facebook enough to never want to use it are in the extreme minority. I think most people just don't think about whether it's evil or not. It's just where they message their friends, upload and view photos, and keep track of upcoming events.
The author of the post references his kids. Someday, his kids will probably be embarrassed by their dad and grow somewhat distant from him as they grow up. Most of the time, though, I think people realize that family is important and so I'll bet that his kids will rediscover the value of their father's love.
Facebook is like your online social homebase. You leave it, travel different places, see new things, meet new people, but it's what you come home to. It's a part of your identity as it serves as an online archive of your life. And for many of its users this archive started pretty early.
In 20 years, I think I'll be happy that I have my Facebook to look back through.
by cs702 on 9/20/12, 7:04 PM
I recently heard of two teenagers (relatives of a business acquaintance) who quit FaceBook because -- well, because it's no longer the freshest gumbo. They no longer feel it's cool.
A few anecdotes do not make a trend, but FaceBook should be worried, because social networks can implode quickly when they stop being perceived as 'the place to see and be seen:' http://diegobasch.com/social-networks-implode-quickly
--
PS. I can relate to the author's complaint: "on Twitter I can find the stuff I’m interested in. On Facebook I can only see the stuff other people are interested in." Very true!
by tatsuke95 on 9/20/12, 6:06 PM
>"She has at last count at least three accounts, possibly more, which she uses for different purposes – some of them just to play those stupid spammy Facebook games and quizzes."
Impossible! According to Facebook, multiple accounts are not an issue, and people like this are outliers!
And yet, almost everyone I know has more than one account. That 900MM user number is phonier than a three-dollar-bill. I wonder what the real number is?
by w1ntermute on 9/20/12, 6:36 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridges_Law_of_Headlines
No.
by tptacek on 9/20/12, 7:21 PM
Can anyone point to a single good ITWorld story ever posted to HN?
We get an anomalous number if ITWorld postings, because they use spam accounts to seed their stories here. But that aside: have any of them ever been good?
Be mindful that you could spark an interesting HN thread by asking any inflammatory question and then just filling the article with lorem ipsum text.
by halayli on 9/20/12, 6:25 PM
The title should be: "My kids are using Facebook less these days".
by mrchess on 9/20/12, 6:02 PM
I'm tired of these stupid sensationalist articles. Pre-IPO everyone talks about how amazing it is, post-IPO everyone just talks about it dying and failing. People need to do something better with their time then speculate over stupidity. It's simply way too early to tell anything.
by hugh4life on 9/20/12, 6:31 PM
No, Facebook is not dying because Facebook is the Walmart of the internet. I'd prefer not to shop there but sometimes there's no way to avoid it.
by prostoalex on 9/20/12, 7:51 PM
Is communicating with friends dying?
Sure, nearly six billion people do it. But I for one am dealing with a serious case of burnout. And I know I'm not alone.
Ok, I admit: The question that serves as the headline for this post seems on the surface a bit absurd, if not downright crazy. Any day now seven billionth person is about to communicate with friends, and that's a population more than 21 times that of the United States.
The reason I ask if communicating with friends is dying is simple: It’s because my kids have pretty much stopped doing it. Just the other day my 16 year old son told me he rarely does it, because he’s tired of other people’s whiny life updates. He’d rather spend his time reading books and discovering new things (when he’s supposed to be doing his homework, naturally). In other words, he’d like to do his own random discovery, rather than rely on his friends to do it for him.
My 13-year-old daughter, a much more social creature, was all over communicating with friends for the first two years she tried it.
But lately she has discovered scrapbooking, where she can build her own scrapbook and find others that interest her – without getting all this stuff she doesn’t care about pushed at her by her parents, relatives, and assorted friends.
In other words, the generation that follows Gen Z has grown disenchanted with the very nature of communicating with friends. And I gotta say, I’m starting to see their point.
More and more when I am bored and looking for distraction in real life I go first to newspaper or TV. Last night, for example, I spent a ridiculous amount of time following the CNN coverage of 47 percent and all the snark that erupted from Mitt Romney’s “off the cuff, inelegant” comments about the half of America he apparently detests.
I was listening to national news anchors, whose voice and ability to stay fair and balanced are far superior to the local TV station experience (and miles ahead of any political coverage I ever get from my friends and family). The TV remote let me quickly change channels without having to buy a new television set or turn it off and on again. So I spent a solid hour skimming through news bytes and listening in-depth to those that piqued my interest.
by RandallBrown on 9/20/12, 8:09 PM
A friend of mine I haven't talked to in awhile told me that he deleted his facebook. He said that any of the people he actually wants to be in contact with have his phone number and can catch up with him that way. The thing is though, we live on other sides of the country. I'm not really the kind of guy that randomly calls up his friends just to see how they're doing. There really aren't any other reasons to talk to him, so we just end up not talking.
With my friends that are on Facebook though, I can read what they're doing, they can see what I'm doing, and we can comment and talk about it. Oh, you saw a movie? I also saw that movie, wasn't it good/bad/funny/whatever?
Also, the groups and events on Facebook are just fantastic for planning things. I went on a trip with some friends from college a couple weeks ago. We all live in different parts of the country and coordinating something like that would have been a nightmare without Facebook. We made a group and used it to post all the information about when our flights were leaving, what hotel we'd be staying at. It was really really convenient.
If you're annoyed with your friends posting stupid stuff, just ignore the news feed. There are dozens of other reasons to use facebook.
by roryliam on 9/20/12, 6:33 PM
Facebook isn't dying but I think it is easier to leave than it once was. The pull of Facebook is weaker with the proliferation and growth of more niche social networks - or networks such as Twitter where users can carve their own niches - and other methods of discovery of content (the article mentions Reddit and StumbleUpon).
The common complaint that Facebook is full of advertising, apps and ranty, passive aggressive status updates is justified. It is possible that people will grow tired of having their friendships and other social interactions mediated through Facebook without major changes in usage habits (maybe something more intimate and limited like Path) and the way that Facebook goes about making money.
While I agree that Facebook makes it easier to keep in touch with friends - possibly due to the critical mass rather than anything inherent in the service, - I do not think this is necessarily a good thing. It is often passive (stalking) rather than active. I deleted my Facebook account last weekend and I already feel as if I have an obligation to actively pursue friendships if I want them to continue.
by kylek on 9/20/12, 6:02 PM
facebook started dieing after my mom added me as a friend
by bluetidepro on 9/20/12, 5:57 PM
I know the author mentions "Ok, I admit: The question that serves as the headline for this post seems on the surface a bit absurd, if not downright crazy." at the beginning but still, I don't think he really gives much valid evidence to what his underlying point is. No offense to him, but I don't give really give much credit to his case just because of how his two children (16 year old son and 13 year old daughter) use Facebook. Esp when he says himself, they are just 2 users of the ~1 billion...
by smashing on 9/21/12, 12:31 AM
I get that the overwhelming majority of Hacker News supports Barack Obama and feels the need to be very vocal in their support of him online. I understand that every two to four years their is a lot of online discussion about how evil Republicans are and how they hold us back in every way. I understand that acknowledging this as politics and not as the absolute truth to the way things have to be is very unpopular online, even on this site which is supposed to be relatively free of politics. But why do I always feel left out? I don't want to participate in the months of hate-Hate-HATE to whatever Republican candidate happens to be in the running for office. I personally don't think Romney is all that bad, and I don't think that Obama is all that good. I like technical things, not political things.
by jbigelow76 on 9/20/12, 6:34 PM
My Facebook account is pretty much in zombie mode now. I'll give it a quick scan every couple days to see if my friends posted anything of interest but I don't post anything.
Mostly it's there so my parents don't start wondering if they need to "get on that twitter thing" and to see what I've been up to.
by autophil on 9/20/12, 6:47 PM
Is Facebook dying? Yes, because lately, everyone has been asking "is Facebook dying?". It's a self-fulfilling prophesy.
However, I also say yes because many people I know have abandoned their accounts or use their accounts reluctantly nowadays.
So yes, Facebook will continue to bleed users and die.
by rlu on 9/20/12, 6:31 PM
I feel like on a normal day, my Facebook news feed is filled with more positive posts than negative ones. I don't see people whine that often.
This shouldn't be surprising - don't people want to put their best foot forward on facebook? Sure, whining is fun some of the time (yay validation! everyone like and comment and agree with me!!) but a lot of the time you want to not sound whiny.
I would also hesitate jumping to conclusions based on the experiences of a seemingly antisocial 16 year old (not quite her words, but she seemed to imply it) and a 13 year old who started using Facebook when she was ELEVEN?
I would not be surprised if kids in that age range whine more than kids in mine (18-24)
by dumb_dumb on 9/20/12, 11:20 PM
Not sure about the headline but it makes sense what his kids are doing. Reddit and Tumblr allow much more freedom and do not try so blatently hard to profit from traffic.
Facebook is dying a slow death for what it was once used for: fun. They have too much cash on hand to disappear any time soon. But users will grow tired of Facebook as a pleasurable diversion. Because Facebook will keep trying harder and harder to make money. Because the traffic will gradually slow down. When you make all your money from display ads, and the traffic begins to slow, you get desperate. Slowly, Facebook is inching toward this inevitability.
by GeneralMaximus on 9/21/12, 2:04 PM
Facebook is not dying. I feel it's going from being a fad to a utility. I've noticed that people I know are posting fewer status updates with every passing year, but they still heavily use Facebook for chat, event invitations, photos and groups. For a lot of people, Facebook seems to be becoming less of a pastime and more of a tool for communicating with friends and family.
I dislike Facebook as much as the next hacker, but I don't think Facebook is going anywhere anytime soon. It'll just become less interesting as a communication medium. After all, nobody is excited about the telephone any more.
by jksmith on 9/20/12, 7:35 PM
If I really cared about this stuff, I'd love to respond to yet another request to get on Facebook by saying that I only do Myspace. I think I just felt a trend-setter gasm there.
Facebook is not even cool anymore, and in five years time will be seen as one of the dumbest IPO's in history. How did these greyhairs who invested in this crap make their money in the first place?
Tesla, yes. SpaceX, yes. Facebook? Are you fucking kidding me?
by taylodl on 9/20/12, 8:57 PM
Better question: are all social networking sites doomed to be fads and thus doomed to die? The answer leads to paradoxical results. If we answer 'yes' then no one will create another Facebook and thus Facebook will survive. If we answer 'no' then a competitor will emerge and thus increasing the chance that Facebook dies.
by vividmind on 9/20/12, 6:44 PM
I had a chance to work directly with Facebook API and in terms of documentation, bugs, overall robustness I can tell that it's pretty crappy. Takes a lot of effort to do simple stuff and things are often not working. That definitely doesn't look as a good trend.
Twitter API looked a lot more solid to me.
Anyways, just my 2 cents from a dev POV...
by unreal37 on 9/20/12, 6:35 PM
Americans spend 7 hours per month on Facebook, on average. It's not dying any more than "TV" is dying.
by PaulHoule on 9/20/12, 7:34 PM
I haven't used FB in the last few months except to log into other sites.
I haven't used Twitter much either, since the U.I. has gotten so slow for me I'd need to carve out a 10 minute block of time to wait for it to load.
by mykosmos on 9/21/12, 9:34 AM
The social approach is biased because one not necessarily likes what his friends like. People tend to be friend with people who have different hobbies/interests.
by abc_lisper on 9/20/12, 7:11 PM
Not sure if it is dying, but it is very much a product that can be killed by negative press. Just negative press. May be Murdoch can pull some strings there.
by derwiki on 9/20/12, 9:49 PM
tl;dr another reporter has deciding that since Facebook is waning in his household, it everyone else will probably start hating it.
I'm not convinced this article provides any value, except as Yet Another thread where people can weigh in on "why I don't use Facebook anymore" or "why you're all wrong, Facebook is fine."
by lukethomas on 9/20/12, 7:17 PM
My 13 year old sister doesn't even have a Facebook account - but she uses Instagram like there's no tomorrow.
by VeejayRampay on 9/20/12, 6:30 PM
Let us hope so.
by duked on 9/20/12, 7:46 PM
I was tired of slashdot obvious advertising with itworld/networkworld/junkworld.com ... only to find the same links here :(