Facebook is going to die?
This is not a sensational news. This is based on analysis of some data and information available in public domain.
Before going to the data let us consider a general truth: Every thing has an end. Nature is about spin/sine wave/up & down. Something which is at the top today will be at the rock bottom tomorrow. Looks like that time for Facebook has come. Wall Street Journal on Oct 17 2018 breaks a story saying "Several public funds with holdings in Facebook Inc., including New York City’s pension funds, are backing a shareholder proposal to push out Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg as chairman of the social-media giant’s board of directors". [ source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/funds-back-proposal-to-remove-zuckerberg-as-facebook-chairman-1539789440]. It means there is a problem of trust or confidence on leadership of chairman. When it happens? The business is going up, earnings are high, future is bright? No, leadership can't be challenged when everything is right. It is challenges when there are serious problems, when leader is weak, earnings are not good, company is not growing.
Let us further look at other reasons why Facebook may see its toughest time in future.
If data of millions of users is compromised do we still think that users will have trust on the platform?
The Guardian reported on Apr 8th 2018: "Facebook to contact 87 million users affected by data breach" [Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/08/facebook-to-contact-the-87-million-users-affected-by-data-breach]
On Sep 29th 2018 The Guardian reported: "Facebook says nearly 50m users compromised in huge security breach". [Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/28/facebook-50-million-user-accounts-security-berach]
It has impacted the users. If you see the user growth data you can see decrease and that is not good.
Edison Research and Triton Digital published a report which probes how Americans use social media, audio services, and other technology. This year report on social media revealed a shocking news about Facebook that, usage is declined in first time ever since its study of Facebook usage since 2008. [Source: https://www.edisonresearch.com/category/infinite-dial/page/3/]
Pew Research reported that "42% of the facebook users have taken a break from the site in the past year" [Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/05/americans-are-changing-their-relationship-with-facebook/]
As a result stocks should go down and that happened. Time reported on July 25th 2018 "Facebook's Stock Plummets As User Growth and Revenue Miss Expectations"[https://time.com/5349100/facebook-revenue-decline-zuckerberg/]
Another story on Business Insider reports: "Facebook's growth went into reverse for the first time, and the worst is yet to come" [Source: https://www.businessinsider.in/Facebooks-growth-went-into-reverse-for-the-first-time-and-the-worst-is-yet-to-come/articleshow/65150800.cms]
Fake news was also one of the reason why lots of people didn't like it. The platform was used to spread fake news which resulted in to some serous consequences and people didn't like it.
Congress panel summoned Mark Zuckerberg for testimony early this year. Facebook had been used for political usage and it was used to affect elections. If we remember Myspace and its failure and at the same time survival of Facebook we see that Myspace was not able to control content which Facebook did. People used to complain about nudity on Mysapce and we hardly saw it on Facebook. Myspace would have also controlled it but I guess they wanted it to be there and they were thinking it as one of the reason for user engagement and it proved to be their wrong judgement. Similarly I guess Facebook has also been enjoying political propaganda war and would have been considering it as a source of user activity and engagement. I think lots of users lost interest on the platform because of that hater and political debate on the platform.
As a result of less user activities and decline in number is users, advertisers will leave the platform and may be they would already have started leaving it. It means decline in revenues.
Following is a summary of why Facebook may die soon:
- Facebook was not able to protect privacy and public data hence users lost their faith and trust on the platform.
- It left the platform for the propaganda goons to use the way they wanted hence normal users were scared and lost interest in the platform
- Facebook was not able to handle fake news (this point is related to above but different than it)
- There is saturation of users interest level too (which comes with the time naturally)
- GDPR in European countries
Future will tell if Facebook and its founder are able to survive solving these issues or not. Please let me know your feedback in comments.
Principle Architect at a multinational company
6 年Good news and government of Japan has taken a step for protection of user information: https://www.poandpo.com/companies/japanese-government-orders-facebook-to-improve-data-protection-22102018406
Senior Technical Architect at Wipro
6 年I do not think there will be a sudden death of Facebook in the near future. Unless there is an equal player, with comparable strength, Facebook will stay afloat in times to come. Google, a few years back tried a similar feate, with its Google + platform, but users didn't like it for many reasons. Facebook shouldn't be taken lightly when it comes to attract new users and retaining the existing once.? Though I have stopped using Facebook long back, I have seen keen interests in people who participate actively on certain groups on daily basis.? And there are users who have no idea about data breach.? So, the game will change only if a new players enters into the same field, at the same level as Facebook is currently placed.?
Principle Architect at a multinational company
6 年What do you say Brett S. Brody?Brigette Hyacinth?