Facebook: Running Out of Users? No, Just Nibbling on Its Foot
July 25, 2019
About that Facebook growth? The US may be saturated, and FBF or Facebook fatigue may be kicking. Rumors about “phantom” Facebookers in far flung countries won’t die. The regulators are flocking with legal eagles, and some countries see Facebook as a piggy bank filled with easy money.
What else could go wrong?
According to Information (no, that’s the name of an online publication), quite a bit. “Facebook Secret Research Warned of ‘Tipping Point’ Threat to Core App” discloses allegedly confidential information that doom approaches with a Like icon. (We will take a look at secrets let loose in our August 6, 2019, “DarkCyber” video program.)
What’s the Facebook secret?
…if enough users started posting on Instagram or WhatsApp instead of Facebook, the blue app could enter a self-sustaining decline in usage that would be difficult to undo. Although such “tipping points” are difficult to predict…
Here’s a Venn diagram (remember those you algebra lovers?) to prove this “secret”:
These could be Facebook’s five circles of social hell. Source: Information (that’s a great name when searching!)
To simplify, Facebook is cannibalizing itself. Without a flow of “real,” honest to goodness users of “old” Facebook, it’s possible for the core service to shrink and maybe die.
No, no, no, howls one group of FB Likers. Yes, yes, yes, shout another group which collectively dislikes Facebook.
Several observations:
- Monopolies do what they do, steered by the invisible hand of digital leprosy
- Reversing the cannibalism is going to take more than high school science club management methods, apologies, and writing checks to assorted nation states
- A weakened Facebook can fall prey to the MySpace disease, the digital pneumonia which thrives in poorly managed social spaces.
Net net: Worth watching. Get your popcorn, kick back, and think how certain government agencies will obtain high value information from a weakened Facebook.
Stephen E Arnold, July 25, 2019
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