Re:The Fall of Facebook
by mercer on Thursday November 20, 2014 @04:19PM
(#8638213)
This is pretty much why I'm so confused that Facebook didn't go through with the whole 'facebook as a platform' plan.
I remember being excited about all the ways I could use Facebook as the 'social' backend to a whole bunch of apps I considered building. I also remember eventually giving up on that idea because clearly Facebook had decided that being the 'social API' was not their goal anymore.
Meanwhile, the vast, vast majority of my network (ages generally around 25-35, Dutch, tech-savvy) only use Facebook for chat, internal groups, and the occasional silly post, which is much less than our use a few years ago (we'd upload vacation photos and actually 'write'), and a significant number of us would leave if it wouldn't be so inconvenient. And the vast majority of teens seem to not really be into Facebook.
Basically, had FB continued with their 'social layer of the web' approach, it'd have been perfect for us, and it seems, to me, for FB too. And yet for some reason they decided to stay the old course and tend their increasingly less-cool walled garden. I am usually capable of understanding the behavior of a company even if it acts in ways that I don't like, but I don't see how this benefits them.
The only plausible theory I can come up with is that FB suffers from groupthink. It would explain this issue, but also many of their tone-deaf actions concerning privacy and the timeline. Perhaps they are really mostly building for themselves, and not realizing that their audience is slowly eroding. But then analysis of user behavior should make this clear... it confuses me!
I remember being excited about all the ways I could use Facebook as the 'social' backend to a whole bunch of apps I considered building. I also remember eventually giving up on that idea because clearly Facebook had decided that being the 'social API' was not their goal anymore.
Meanwhile, the vast, vast majority of my network (ages generally around 25-35, Dutch, tech-savvy) only use Facebook for chat, internal groups, and the occasional silly post, which is much less than our use a few years ago (we'd upload vacation photos and actually 'write'), and a significant number of us would leave if it wouldn't be so inconvenient. And the vast majority of teens seem to not really be into Facebook.
Basically, had FB continued with their 'social layer of the web' approach, it'd have been perfect for us, and it seems, to me, for FB too. And yet for some reason they decided to stay the old course and tend their increasingly less-cool walled garden. I am usually capable of understanding the behavior of a company even if it acts in ways that I don't like, but I don't see how this benefits them.
The only plausible theory I can come up with is that FB suffers from groupthink. It would explain this issue, but also many of their tone-deaf actions concerning privacy and the timeline. Perhaps they are really mostly building for themselves, and not realizing that their audience is slowly eroding. But then analysis of user behavior should make this clear... it confuses me!