> Facebook is going to get done in by the fact that the younger generation doesn't like it

All the younger generation I know are big users of Instagram and WhatsApp - both FB properties.

Yea, Facebook had admitted to missing mobile and the WhatsApp purchase was driven very much by the knowledge that the for platform was losing streak.

Around here most of my friends have moved from WhatsApp to Telegram after Facebook aquired WhatsApp.

Instagram is fairly popular as well but WhatsApp never really went mainstream.

Indeed, he is killing his darling before someone else can.

No interest in working there personally because I despise both PHP and working in an open office, but I don't think the Zuckerberg brand of fine social content is going away any time soon.

I literally don't know anyone who uses Whatsapp, only Messenger. These things are very different across the world.

I live in the U.S. I use Whatsapp to connect with family members in another country. I have a Facebook account just for my informal HOA community posts. I have zero fb friends. I hope my HOA finds another means to communicate.

I read on HN Brazil has a vibrant WhatsApp community of users. Doctors confirming appointments, hospital sending stuff, etc. That kind of things.

Whatsapp is the market leader in mobile (and desktop) IM in LATAM & EU. YMMV but I would go with ~75-80%

Do they have more granular data? I guess they're more prevalent in Western Europe (I read about people from Spain or Italy being all on).

different indeed, everyone I know in Ireland uses it.

WhatsApp absolutely dominates SEA too.

> No. I think you're overestimating how much bad press Facebook is actually getting outside the tech bubble.

If you think Facebook is only getting hammered inside the tech bubble, you probably are living inside the tech bubble.

People are waking up to the harm caused by Facebook everywhere. My non-technical friends' raging against Facebook sounds similar to what I've been hearing from my technical friends for the past 5 years.

> People are waking up to the harm caused by Facebook everywhere.

If you think people are "waking up everywhere", you're probably inside a bubble. Where I'm from (outside the US) Facebook is just doing business as usual. If anything its new features are growing (anecdotally, Marketplace).

I think the watershed moment was the election of Donald Trump. While it may not have been the determining factor, the deluge of fake news claiming Trump is the only one who could save us from Obama the secret Kenyan Muslim certainly couldn't have hurt his chances of winning.

Nobody ever questioned the value of giving the uneducated this much power and amplification.

I don't think it is just within the tech bubble... here in the UK for example it is now mainstream news on a weekly basis.

It's at the tipping point where grandparents are starting to talk about the "snooping" and data gathering of Facebook.

Indeed, I've had almost strangers at the bar even start to talk about how bad facebook is now. I don't ever remember this happening before. I don't think its just in the tech bubble, this definitely appears to me to be outside the tech bubble now. I also notice people texting more often lately in my friend groups. It definitely feels more mainstream.

'... here in the UK for example it is now mainstream news on a weekly basis.'

Well mainstream news 'in the UK' seems to focus on most things that are not in the UK, so no surprises there.

My guess is they will keep buying platforms and products to get customers without needing to innovate internally.

Having a bad rap inside the tech bubble affects them in relation to recruiting and retention though. If the tech zeitgeist turns against Facebook as a "cool place to work" that's pretty bad news for them.

The majority of the new sources I consume are not "tech news."

And I can say that Facebook is receiving negative coverage from all of them. It's standard mainstream fare now.

And it has been so for at least the last 3 months.

Yeah, it's definitely not just in the tech bubble at all. My parents in Tennessee, as well as my sisters and friends, all dislike Facebook for one reason or another-- the lack of privacy, the constant barrage of low-quality posts and annoying ads, the near-complete lack of content you actually care about, etc.