I think another perspective is that this is a case of businesses chasing (or being forced to chase) endless 'growth'.
Facebook is likely optimising to increase engagement and revenue.
But in my humble opinion the Facebook of the early 2000s was close to perfect in terms of use. Obviously leaving the product the same wasn't going to drive that revenue and make the careers of all the employees.
I wish Facebook remained as the platform I could jump on a couple of times a week to see what distant friends and my Grandma was up to. For a while they somehow managed to have just the right balance where it seemed like everyone on the planet would eventually sign up.
It felt like this was a huge step forward in how the world communicated.
Logging onto Facebook in 2022 is a cesspit of flashy videos and clickbait posts. What a disappointment.
... that people in your network (re-)post, right?
"Facebook doesn't respect me or my needs, but I likewise don't respect Facebook or care about its needs. so it's kind of fair. It's free, and I think I'm getting more out of it than it's getting out of me. Plus almost everyone I know is on there, so ..."
Do we know that they aren't? Certainly my Facebook usage has dramatically changed since 10 years ago, and I would say that's true of the majority of my network too. I still use Messenger and I still log in about once a week or so, so I imagine I still count towards Monthly Average Users, but still: there was a time in my life 10-15 years ago where my entire social life was mediated through Facebook specifically, and now if it disappeared tomorrow, I'd barely notice other than Messenger. All my social media "attention" is on Instagram and Twitter now.
I wonder what their internal engagement metrics look like. I bet Facebook’s feed engagement (which is their primary ad display) on the Facebook app is way down, because the feed sucks. Instagram risks doing the same with this frenzied push for engagement.
This is a big reason I still use Facebook, and am extremely unhappy that they keep removing features :(. I used to be able to browse events easily for random dates in random locations on my phone, a feature that now only seems to exist on desktop... but, even then, it doesn't seem to support not having a search term :/. When you combine that with fewer and fewer events being on it due to fewer and fewer people being in the target market of using it it is in a death spiral.
> Facebook's owner Meta Platforms says DAUs fell to 1.929bn in the three months to the end of December [2021], compared to 1.930bn in the previous quarter.
He's a bad guy and invading Ukraine is horrible, all the usual caveats. But Putin under every rock and behind every bush being responsible for every toothache and hangnail is getting old.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/21/russia-bans-fa...
You can't make any claims about Facebook's position based on a single quarter's result.
Especially given we are in the most tumultuous period in the last few decades.
The 90s covered the fall and breakup of one of two world powers, and had a gulf war and the breakup/war in Yugoslavia, so that's similarly rules out.
The 00s covered terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and London, changing air travel worldwide, starting wars and inspiring more terrorism (Madrid, Mumbay). Oh, and a financial meltdown compared to the Great Depression. So that's probably also not in your "last few decades".
That leaves the 2010s, which cover (amongst others) the start of the corona pandemic. I guess you're including that event in your "recent decades".
Plenty omitted from the above, such as famines and wars in Africa, news from Latin-America, "where's my vote" in Iran, the Arab Spring, Rohinga & Myanmar, ...; in short: we've been in a couple of tumultuous decades for a while now.
Wouldn't a consequence of this be that Facebook would be losing users in drovers? And yet the data seem to disagree. This is a type of take that feels very "inside baseball" and fueled more by the feelings of its proponents than any kind of empiricism.