For close to a decade now, people have been insisting that Facebook is in trouble because young folks don't like it. I've always rejected that idea because usage kept growing regardless, young users or not.
Something's different now though, something is in the air. I genuinely believe we've achieved peak social media already, and it's downhill from here.
Usage is close to maximized. The amount of distractions one can tolerate in the form of ads has breached tolerance levels.
There's the repetitiveness. Social media is now > 15 years old. Reading content on a daily basis even if you find said content mildly enjoyable is getting very "meh".
Influencers, activists, scammers, spammers have developed a wide array of tactics that piggy-back on outrage algorithms that make feeds upsetting instead of pleasant.
I think an increasing amount of people are realizing that social media sucks. You can do without it or do with less of it, and this only improves your life. I don't expect a super steep decline, rather a lengthy slow one. For sure not any meaningful growth, other than the occasional sideways switch.
That definitely feels like an existential problem for Facebook.
Personally I don't think that social media will ever fall out of fashion because it's a core human biological need. All Facebook has to do is to keep up with the latest trend, whatever that may be. Maybe people will rather livechat than post static content. Or maybe they rather sit around in a 3d virtual environment. Who knows. But they'll always want to connect with others. Maybe they'll even prefer talking to an AI than to humans but that's still effectively a social interaction that Facebook can provide and connect. They'll simply pivot towards letting you create your own AI friends.
There's a pretty big gap between socializing/communicating as a core human need and this taking shape in the form of current social media. Which didn't exist for 99.999% of our history and is in many ways unnatural.
Reminds me of the video game crash of the 80's. Even tho the tech was advancing rapidly, American game makers kept shoveling crap into the customer's mouths and eventually the customers vomited.
Something's different now though, something is in the air. I genuinely believe we've achieved peak social media already, and it's downhill from here.
Usage is close to maximized. The amount of distractions one can tolerate in the form of ads has breached tolerance levels.
There's the repetitiveness. Social media is now > 15 years old. Reading content on a daily basis even if you find said content mildly enjoyable is getting very "meh".
Influencers, activists, scammers, spammers have developed a wide array of tactics that piggy-back on outrage algorithms that make feeds upsetting instead of pleasant.
I think an increasing amount of people are realizing that social media sucks. You can do without it or do with less of it, and this only improves your life. I don't expect a super steep decline, rather a lengthy slow one. For sure not any meaningful growth, other than the occasional sideways switch.
That definitely feels like an existential problem for Facebook.