I've noticed many of my friends have become less active on Facebook over the past year, and my newsfeed is becoming less personal (random news articles and ads being more than half of what I see). I've also noticed myself logging into Facebook less often and when I do, it's usually for specific groups. Quite frankly, Facebook is boring and very different than when I first joined. I've checked with some other people and they all share a similar experience.<p>I wonder if this is a universal thing -- who else feels the same?
I don't use FB, but the overwhelming "temperature check" from friends who do jibs with your assessment. In general people are saying they get far fewer genuine "friend-to-friend" updates, and more "news in my bubble", "come to my event" etc type updates. Almost to the point where they wonder if their (real, actual) friends divorced / got depressed / decide secretly de-friend them (only to eventually find out that "No, I just don't really have time to post all my shit all the time anymore.")<p>So it may not be "dying" per se -- but does appear to be slowly transitioning from a "stay-in-touch-with-friends" service to a YANA-type ("yet another noisy aggregator") service / thingamajig.<p>That is, the same transitional state that all of its (smaller-scale) predecessors (Digg, FriendFeed, Myspace) wallowed in for so many years before meeting their inevitable fate.
Facebook is working to adopt as many "social network features" as possible. That means that they replicate features at will to maintain their position at the table. Personally, I do see less up to date sharing from my friends. The new real-time constant update stream is from Snap and instagram.<p>The idea of posting an update (whatever it may be) to a personal thread that is then displayed to your network when an algo decides, removes the "true" sharing sensation. I would argue instagram has made similar updates (Fb company). I prefer the real-time non-adjusted update stream path. It feels more natural, if I miss something from 2 AM, that is fine. I wasn't there to experience it at that time (around that time). It takes away from the spontaneity of sharing and being exposed to shared content.<p>I imagine teenagers would feel this at an accentuated rate. Their lives revolve around friend groups at school, sports, hanging out. Seeing shared updates at non-related algo determined intervals would impact their FB experience and leave an "uncool" feeling.
I, personally, closed my account in January. I became wary of my personal outrage echo chamber. Every time I logged in my feed was just things or links to things pissed about or people's opinions on what they were pissed about. I felt like the good of feeling connected to folks that were, in reality, now strangers was being far outweighed by the pervasive negativity I was being subjected to.<p>I don't know how universal my experience is, but I walked away from FB feeling like I was part of a massive experiment gone wrong.
No. Instead, this is probably an example of people on this forum not being representative of global Internet users. If you want actual data, look at their quarterly earnings [1] where they report user engagement metrics. Daily active users reached an all time high of 1,227 Billion in Q4. DAU/MAU reached an enviable all-time high 66%, etc.<p>There are some challenges in how they present the data and it is unclear what you are including in the definition of "Facebook". The report doesn't break out Instagram & WhatsApp separately. So there could be a decline on Facebook.com which is offset with increases elsewhere.<p>[1] <a href="https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_presentations/FB-Q4'16-Earnings-Slides.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_presentations/FB-Q...</a>
I think it's no longer relevant for young people, it's firmly the social network of your parents and grandparents. But it will take decades for those parents and grandparents to turn over, and the younger people will maintain a token presence there so they're not sought out on their real social network. So it's not like Facebook is going anywhere soon.
They've definitely evolved from their original charter as a "social network", where I'd interact with friends over content we ourselves put on the site. Now I feel like my feed is (was) 95% ads plus linked and shared news articles and then maybe 5% posts from friends. People still interacted with each other, but it was definitely less organic like you said and more banter about things external to your personal relationships. I don't like Facebook, I probably never did, and I finally got my Spotify login linked to my email instead of my Facebook account so I'm done with the site. Over the last year and a half I realized it's evolved into a giant surveillance vector and just got too creepy.<p>All that said, no I don't think it's dying for two reasons: 1) young people today (whatever we're calling the generation that comes after millennials) seem to be unconcerned with "oversharing" and appear to derive some kind of dopamine hit from it. So the things that come across as creepy to me probably don't affect that generation in the same way. 2) I could be wrong, but Facebook does also appear to be attempting to diversify their business. They've done this in the past, and I don't see too much reason to panic right now (if I were an investor that is).<p>Honestly, I would indeed prefer that it died. I think it makes people unhappy, harms relationships, and ends up being a replacement for reality for a lot of people - and I was only a once-every-few-days kind of guy. Some of my friends compulsively use that thing, even if <i>they're actually out with real people not the manufactured online personae on display in your "profile."</i>
I quit facebook like an year ago. Couldnt be much happier. Initially, I started using facebook as my one stop website for everything. Check on my friends and same time I will read and go through news. Later, I was really upset about targeted ads. I'm cant say its dying, all my friends still use it day to day. But I feel is the trend is changing. instead of daily "status updates" people are sharing more content.
Facebook are where my cuckoo "friends" hangout and post political and religious views. My observation is the more personal problems you have and the stronger your views, the more likely you will post on Facebook to get attention. It's a big turn-off.<p>I realize you can unfollow friends without unfriending them but my facebook stream is not worth visiting weekly anymore.
Everybody's on Messenger. I don't see people making many posts either.<p>If you want to see what's going on in your friends' lives Snapchat is where it's at.<p>I don't think they're dying anytime soon, but their obsession with stuffing Snapchat stories into every FB product shows they're at least worried.
They will be in trouble if they can't monetize Messenger.
Same for me. I miss the times where I only saw babies, cats and dinner plates on my feed, it was personal, now its just garbage news, garbage ads, garbage IP-theft (videos grabbed from YT etc.)
Just an anecdote about the immense value that can be derived from it amongst all the newsfeed crap:<p>This week, I moved 16000km away from home. Brand new to the city, after being here for 3 days, I get a notification that friend X has posted a local facebook group I'd joined that week.<p>I hadn't seen friend X (more of an acquaintance) in 4 years or so, but because of seeing this notification, he also saw a similar notification from a post I made, we both reached out at the same time, sent a few messages and ended up spending the entire day together.<p>Turns out we're both here for at least the next 6 months with similar intentions and have way more in common than we'd previously thought.<p>I've got a few other examples of serendipity that have happened due to social networks and as much as I hate the cancer that populates the newsfeed, messenger, groups, instagram and the directory itself provide immense value.
Facebook is doing great. People are just using it differently (which may make you enjoy it less, of course).<p>I can't find the article now, but I recently read that Facebook users post their own stories far less often than they used to. Much of Facebook.com is now the swapping and discussion of news stories.<p>Some of the more social, personal activity you're missing has probably moved to Instagram.
I was really annoyed with many new news sources putting crap on my page.<p>Personally, I removed the Facebook app from all my devices. But I still have the messenger app. That is a real time killer. It's a quick distraction, but often I regret later for spending time on facebook instead of doing my chores or something useful. I have seen the same with many people in my circle. Maybe it's because I am getting older, but I do not hear people talking about tagging people on facebook photos, these days<p>Another issue is with Govts & employers looking at your social media presence. I am seriously considering just abandoning my facebook page as I feel it will seem suspicious if I delete it and I did see a couple of people complaining of how facebook activates deleted facebook profile.
I think the answer is yes. Their engagement has dropped and continues to drop - maybe something to do with why you find FB boring.<p>I stopped using facebook because i got gaslighted by the algo again and again. If I "share" my friends see it, but anything else and magically nobody sees it. So FB isn't even a way to stay in touch with my friends because... it won't let me.<p>But it <i>is</i> changing, and as a company they've taken steps to stay relevant, and are still the big social media company. I don't think they'll go down without a fight, and strategically they may one day pivot away from the FB app towards a suite of ones they've bought up.
Facebook News has become more of an RSS reader for all of the pages I've ever liked (or a personalized advertisement reader). They have banned updates from friends to the top right corner on desktop and it has disappeared from mobile. This is unless the content is "engaging" enough. The other screen/time real estate is being used to show as much of their paying customer's content as possible.<p>The advertising business model works in contradiction to finding the most relevant content for you. I've unliked every page to get the most stripped down version of my feed possible.
Facebook's login page says "connect and share with friends".<p>1. The connection part is true, partially. Facebook for me keeps my hold of people I knew or met in the past. But I almost never add new connection via facebook. It is always via, whatsapp or linkedin.<p>2. The sharing part is done well (for uploaded or created content) but there is a lot of noise from all the pages and ads. So,even when done well, it doesn't encourage me to share much over there given it only reaches to probably only a fraction of my connections.
FB User Growth Outlook: Strikingly, close to half of all of the new users will be adults 65 and older. > <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/news/report-facebook-user-growth-could-decline-2017/#ixzz4cd0kIM1g" rel="nofollow">http://www.investopedia.com/news/report-facebook-user-growth...</a>
I don't know if Facebook is dying, but what I can assure is that every day I'm getting more and more tired of it. They are connecting everything to everything (Whatsapp is dying for mee too due to this). I prefered the time when it was simply about sharing content with friends.
Facebook content used to be two things: photos of your friends, and "status updates" on what they were doing.<p>Photos have been taken over by Snapchat and Instagram, and discussions/ witty updates seem to be more concentrated on Twitter.
I stopped using it in the traditional sense 3 years ago.<p>Recently I picked it back up, but now I spend most of my time in private or public topic groups. I find there are some decent posts in groups where members have to be invited or approved to join.
Facebook (inc) won't die anytime soon because the most active social platform in 2017 (after youtube) is instagram. That's why they don't really do anything about FB dying...
As others have mentioned, it is being used differently.<p>Snapchat adoption is crazy high where I am, but most of those people are still on Facebook too—they just use them differently.
For me, it died when they dropped the *.edu email requirement.<p>I used it differently after that. I don't use it much at all any more. I have everyone's story hidden. I may pop back in to figure out a birthday date or some other fact about someone.<p>Many people use it like that now. They just block off a bunch of story/timelines and focus on a small subset of people.
I don't want to pee on the sacred ground that is Facebook mythology but it seems that, an ad and investor supported CMS for social, that becomes a public company, and applies a similar editorial algorithm to diverse cultures and demographics, needs must optimize for its most significant stakeholders. Investors want advertisers, advertisers want eyeballs, eyeballs can god damned be force-fed whatever content makes them click most. If Facebook news feed has become a rage-filled bubble-chamber that's because powerful forces demand it become that: human psychology, the zeitgeist, demographics and economics.<p>Bear with me while I lay it all out for you. Notice your natural rising rage to this presentation because the zeitgeist dictates you will prefer outrage to the deterministic positions of others, and I'll explain for you why that's the case in a minute.<p>Human psychology lets news feed push our buttons to make us come back. Our reptilian brains have enslaved us to be click slaves working for the world's bankers! The new exploited class... What a pitiful result for the first generation online and with the shiny tech. Information superhighway... Of broken dreams. But we are mostly happy in our blissful exploitation, and so the bankers are happy, because the best slaves are the ones that believe themselves free.<p>The zeitgeist dictates that outrage engages because outrage has become the main currency you can trade in for being right. In a world that has exchanged old authority values for new authority values, there's a transition period of authority looting which is where we are now. The crowd naturally gets a little mad and scared when the values that used to lead the crowd suddenly dematerialize, and in the age of authority looting everybody runs around trying to get as much authority for themselves as they can. And it turns out that the way individuals can loot authority for themselves in these troubled times is by taking it from others. So outrage engages because outrage let's you pretend others are wrong so you can pretend you are right, thereby lootin some sweet authority for yourself. And social CMS systems are obviously an efficient arena for this.<p>Demographics mean the global billion-user social CMS must optimize its algorithms for people and groups who are the largest and of which you are not necessarily a member. Prepare for moments of jarring discomfort as you encounter the Other, algorithmically abstracted for you for your viewing pleasure.<p>The economics of its revenue and financing structure, means that the Face is answerable to investors, advertisers then us. Human churn is less costly than advertiser churn. To run a business like this and make it profitable you have to be ruthless about the things which earn you money and about the things which dont.<p>But we must never fall into the trap of criticising our benevolent billionaire overlords, who graciously provide these systems for our benefit. They are simply trying to connect all of humanity in a harmony of unity and the beauty of oneness....hmmm, I could believe that if by connecting everyone you meant put them in a glass jar with little air and watching them fight for scarce resources of credibility and popularity. But who knows... Maybe this pressure cooker actually improves humanity in some way. I guess the question is are such systems a selective pressure for good ideas or does it simply bring out the worst of our natures?<p>The Face is clearly a social experiment. And it's an adaptive company. If the Zeitgeist was different I'm sure their algorithms would be optimizing to create different sorts of experiences for us.<p>And I don't think the Face is dying unless our whole human civilization is. Which I think is unlikely. It might be ugly, but Facebook is a reflection of us. It's the interactive mirror. Some people don't like looking in the mirror. It's not surprising. It can be uncomfortable. To see your true Face.<p>If you don't like what you see don't blame The Zuck blame yourselves. It's just showing you who you really are. To get where you're going you got to start where you are right? Maybe it's a good thing that we can all see ourselves so clearly now.