It sounds useful, but it's not really that useful, because it's not really measuring the interesting thing, it just sounds like it is.
For example, I think the stat you're quoting is monthly active users. If everyone used to engage with FB 20 times a day but now does so once a day (or once a week, or once a month) the active user count will stay the same, but the reality is very different.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/346167/facebook-global-d...
People communicate with me via FB messenger, and I respond to them. Otherwise I don't use the app. Am I an active user?
Once a day I open it, realise it's shit and vacuous, and importantly my SIL (the only person I still use it to keep up with) hasn't made any useful updates, so I close it 20 seconds later (this one is me, fwiw). Am I an an active user?
I don't post anything, I just scroll through the same 200 friends I'd had for 10 years, with no movement or differing usage. Am I an active user?
I don't use facebook as a social tool, I have no friends etc, but facebook groups are used in my area to buy and sell things. The second people move to another site I'd happily move. Am I an active user?
Am I an active user?
Am I an active user?
Am I an active user?
Am I an active user?
It--- at least to me--- proves my point that active user is not a useful metric, as all of those people have very different values and drive growth (or don't) in very different ways, and so have no use being clumped together.
We didn't even get to talk about differing user demographics or time, data by country, trends inside countries etc.
Your value is not in reading the articles but in viewing the ads. For FB display advertising, you opened the app and viewed ads. Eyeballs captured! Value unlocked! Sure they’d rather have you spend 5 hours on the site, but even your slight attention is valuable.
Facebook has expanded to new countries in the last decade which has brought these millions of users, but younger generations in countries that have had Facebook for a long time are not using it anymore.
In the US most Facebook users are between 25-34. There are barely any teenagers.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/187041/us-user-age-distr...
This trend is a bit less pronounced in global demographics, but I think it's clear that younger generations don't like Facebook.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/376128/facebook-global-u...
http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-tec...
Facebook just has to be the social network people end up on.
I'd at least look at college-aged people, not the weird, limited social life of high schoolers.
If they stop showing up, it really doesn't matter.
MUAs are better than static profiles, but if the motivation is fear or guilt, rather than active affinity, the connection is tenuous.
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Notes:
1. I counted them: https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/9zx67d/google_com...
You can't grow with an audience base filled with 50 year olds.
I honestly don't know the quality of data that statista produces, so take it with a grain of salt. The curve does appear to be dimming towards the end of Q3 '18, but it certainly doesn't appear to be as dire as people make it out to be.
I think there's a heavy dose of IT-industry echo chambering going on here to be honest.
Point of interest: I severely dislike facebook, so not trying to justify anything on their behalf. I just don't see the idea that "facebook is dying" among any peers in any social circles I'm part of. I do wonder if it's different in the United States.
I think what really matters is something like user actions/day. Anecdotally, Facebook engagement seems to be growing down but perhaps not yet in a way that would show up as a DAU drop (which I assume counts someone with even the barest interaction with the site as "active").
It wouldn’t surprise me if the real number was under a billion. Which is still a big number but it means growth was over along time ago.
The question is can they make enough cash to make the model perpetual.
Hopefully antitrust law will stop them, because with a behemoth like Facebook buying up every new, exciting social network real innovation, especially in monetization, will continue to be a myth.
> They are all old.
It doesn't appear to strictly be the case.