Seconded. It's not obvious from TFA if they are treating whatsapp or instagram as distinct or included. Color me skeptical. Maybe someone with access can chime in more on their methodology.
In the age group 12-34, Facebook dropped from 79% usage in 2017 to 62% in 2019 while Instagram increased from 64% to 66% over the same period, so at least some former Facebook users didn't just migrate to Instagram. They don't have data for WhatsApp before 2019 (23%), so it's still possible that the total number of users in that age bracket actually increased when you pool all of Facebook's properties.
Which makes at least a little sense. Instagram makes it fairly difficult to share/reshare garbage (though it's gotten a bit worse lately) and encourages people to create their own garbage.
That's a good point, and it's probably the main reason why Facebook wants to integrate the infrastructure of all of its platforms, possibly sharing the users and ads between Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp[1].
What else there is to do, when the most profitable product of the company has the slowest growth rate of all.
Am seeing early signs of an instagram decrease. People are deleting their accounts, posting less, and unfollowing people.
I think the switch to stories had an impact. Positive at first, but negative indirectly, as it introduced the “mute” mechanism. At first you could just do this with stories, but now you can mute someone’s posts while still “following” them.
Before, on instagram, if someone followed you, you really knew they followed you. So people sort of self-policed their posts, as they knew they’d get unfollowed if they were excessive. And there was a lot of engagement on posts, because 100% of followers saw it.
But now you can follow but not follow. So on the one hand some people are pushing more posts, on the other hand you have a lot of non-genuine followers. This discourages posting.
I have more followers but fewer likes than before, and I also follow more people and see less. The platform feels more hollow than it used to, in the same way facebook does.
I left Instagram for 8 months. I came back last month and noticed every 3 or 4 posts is now an ad. That was not the case when I stopped using it. As ads increase the hallow feeling increases. This is the same as visiting a blog or site with zero ads vs the extreme of visiting a site with ads in every nook and cranny. I am not against ads but there should be a conservative approach to embedding paid messaging.
Also similar to FB, the instagram algorithm is always changing. The fact that your feed is less real-time removes part of the essence of instagram. I liked knowing that my feed was a 1:1 connection to the real world. Now it is less that and more a collection of posts from the people I follow. One of my core ideas around young folks leaving facebook is for the same exact reason.
When you are in grade school, life moments occur everyday and sometimes within a few hours. Think of nailing your first skateboard trick, joining bands, or making the varsity team, etc. Those are all potential posts on any social channel. If you are the consumer of those posts, assuming the same age as the poster, you want to see them in a real-life sequence. It would feel fake or hollow to see the posts (that happened in your school, maybe at your game) contextualized against ads or in a wrong order.
I came to say the same, I can already feel myself being pulled towards removing my account as the ads are lame and the algorithm sucks, I miss things I wanted to see all the time.
I like it but it’s also being filled with drivel and self-promotion to the point of becoming monotonous.
> the portion of Americans reporting that they currently ever use the service
Am I dumb or does anyone else not understand what "currently ever use" means exactly in this context? How is that different than just saying "currently use"?
"Ever" implies independence of time, but matched with "currently" it means what?
(English is my first and only language; I might just be dumb)
Eh, it covers “I use it everday” to “I used it a few months ago and I’ll probably use it again in the future.” So it says they’ve probably completely saturated the market for the US, which has implications for things like revenue growth (now any growth has to come getting more money from the same users, rather than, say, doubling your user count again)
If you don't ever use something, you don't use it at all. If I simply said that I don't use it, there would remain some ambiguity as to what that means, i.e. it could mean that I don't use it much. It seems like a natural use of the word to me, but I'm just one person.
I keep thinking I should go and short Facebook, even though I never trade individual stocks. It's just so clear to me that Facebook will crash and burn in the next couple of years. They are like Nokia in 2008: Still a high market share, but doomed.
Then I remember that Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp. They're doing great, partially because nobody thinks of Instagram as Facebook.
They’re competing with google, in terms of building up shadow profiles for every user of the internet. They’re not crashing and burning, they’re going to end up with government.
Google and Facebook have deployed surveillance and monitoring far beyond what a single government can achieve.
There is not a shred of data you can keep secret unless you work outside of the internet or you life entirely within tor, without ever using the same machine to communicate on a different network.
And yet, 99.9% of the advertisements I see there and that follow me around the internet are completely off the mark in terms of what I actually spend on.
Oculus Quest is coming soon too. Unlike all other VR offerings, this one might actually breakthrough into the living rooms across the world because of the balance between performance and ease of use.
HTC Vive is so much better than Oculus but anything that drives VR adoption I appreciate. Vive is set up so much quicker, has a wireless capability now and has a bigger platform in industry.
A competition between Vive, OR, and hololens in the AR/VR market would be much appreciated.
I applaud your conviction to put money where your mouth is if you follow through. Best case you’re right and you make a bunch of money. Worst case you’re wrong and you get feedback on your prediction accuracy. But assuming you risk reasonable amounts, you’ll be better off either way.
My mind is boggled that technology analysts still haven't figured out that Facebook the company completely expected that Facebook the product would eventually wane.
So they acquired what they thought would be the future and would push growth there, which is exactly what is happening.
What's to say "technology analysts" haven't figured that out? All we're seeing here is that _a thing happened_ and somebody is reporting on said happening.
It's certainly possible that reporters know this and are leaving it out of reporting intentionally, because it would make the story less juicy. In which case they are intentionally making a story that lacks context in order to drive clicks and should be called out as such.
Or they don't know it and are lacking in contextualuzation.
You have to realize that most tech "journalists" are in their 20s and haven't been though a single market cycle yet. For as long as they can remember, Facebook was a thing they used on their iPhone and it was the top social network and Apple was the top phone maker.
>> A total of 2,000 persons were interviewed to explore Americans’ use of digital platforms and new media. From January 4, 2018 to February 11, 2018, telephone interviews were conducted with respondents age 12 and older who were selected via Random Digit Dial (RDD) sampling for both cell phones and landlines.
This are how polls are conducted. You don't need to ask the entire country cause statistically all you need to do is survey a diverse enough subset. A low single digit margin of error is simply not worth surveying orders of magnitude more people over.
This is similar to how presidential approval ratings are conducted, for example, by Gallup in which their sample sizes are even smaller.
43 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 83.5 ms ] threadIn the age group 12-34, Facebook dropped from 79% usage in 2017 to 62% in 2019 while Instagram increased from 64% to 66% over the same period, so at least some former Facebook users didn't just migrate to Instagram. They don't have data for WhatsApp before 2019 (23%), so it's still possible that the total number of users in that age bracket actually increased when you pool all of Facebook's properties.
People are largely leaving Facebook as a product, because they simply don't find it as useful or novel as it once was to them.
And in many ways Instagram is now a bit what Facebook used to be in its early days: personal and with very little noise.
Therefore, Facebook as a company isn't failing. Facebook as a product is.
What else there is to do, when the most profitable product of the company has the slowest growth rate of all.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18997923
From their study, they show that while Facebook dropped, Instagram increased (34, 36, and 39% from 2017 - 2019, respectively).
WhatsApp doesn't have tracking data for 2017/18, but 2019 shows it at 18%.
Here's their downloadable presentation with additional info: http://www.edisonresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Inf...
I think the switch to stories had an impact. Positive at first, but negative indirectly, as it introduced the “mute” mechanism. At first you could just do this with stories, but now you can mute someone’s posts while still “following” them.
Before, on instagram, if someone followed you, you really knew they followed you. So people sort of self-policed their posts, as they knew they’d get unfollowed if they were excessive. And there was a lot of engagement on posts, because 100% of followers saw it.
But now you can follow but not follow. So on the one hand some people are pushing more posts, on the other hand you have a lot of non-genuine followers. This discourages posting.
I have more followers but fewer likes than before, and I also follow more people and see less. The platform feels more hollow than it used to, in the same way facebook does.
Also similar to FB, the instagram algorithm is always changing. The fact that your feed is less real-time removes part of the essence of instagram. I liked knowing that my feed was a 1:1 connection to the real world. Now it is less that and more a collection of posts from the people I follow. One of my core ideas around young folks leaving facebook is for the same exact reason.
When you are in grade school, life moments occur everyday and sometimes within a few hours. Think of nailing your first skateboard trick, joining bands, or making the varsity team, etc. Those are all potential posts on any social channel. If you are the consumer of those posts, assuming the same age as the poster, you want to see them in a real-life sequence. It would feel fake or hollow to see the posts (that happened in your school, maybe at your game) contextualized against ads or in a wrong order.
I like it but it’s also being filled with drivel and self-promotion to the point of becoming monotonous.
Am I dumb or does anyone else not understand what "currently ever use" means exactly in this context? How is that different than just saying "currently use"?
"Ever" implies independence of time, but matched with "currently" it means what?
(English is my first and only language; I might just be dumb)
My guess would be that "currently ever use the service" means "currently use the service, even if just sporadically."
As you say, "currently use the service" would have been sufficient.
Then I remember that Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp. They're doing great, partially because nobody thinks of Instagram as Facebook.
Google and Facebook have deployed surveillance and monitoring far beyond what a single government can achieve.
There is not a shred of data you can keep secret unless you work outside of the internet or you life entirely within tor, without ever using the same machine to communicate on a different network.
A competition between Vive, OR, and hololens in the AR/VR market would be much appreciated.
So they acquired what they thought would be the future and would push growth there, which is exactly what is happening.
Or they don't know it and are lacking in contextualuzation.
Either way it's bad journalism.
As best I can tell this is not a news organization, they're simply showing an interesting data point
You have to realize that most tech "journalists" are in their 20s and haven't been though a single market cycle yet. For as long as they can remember, Facebook was a thing they used on their iPhone and it was the top social network and Apple was the top phone maker.
That's it? 2,000 people surveyed? I actually don't doubt the conclusions, but given the shoddy website, old publication date, and duplicative pieces with negative outlook (https://www.edisonresearch.com/infinite-dial-2019/ and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19322448), this seems like the work of someone with an ulterior motive.
I would bet serious money with even odds that this article was upvoted with fraudulent HN accounts. I wish I could help investigate.
This is similar to how presidential approval ratings are conducted, for example, by Gallup in which their sample sizes are even smaller.