- “The age problem”: Young people aren’t using Facebook at all and are using Instagram less, but the success of both platforms as advertising revenue bonanzas is predicated on usage by the youth demographic.
- “The innovation problem”: Facebook hasn’t invented a new hit since the blue app itself and its other successes were all acquired.
- “The metaverse problem”: They’re betting the company on AR/VR, but it remains to be seen whether that’s going to be a big thing.
- “The antitrust problem”: No summary necessary.
I really hope Meta/Facebook/Zuckerberg runs out of money and goes away forever
Facebook has one problem and it’s called TikTok.
The problem looks pretty clear to me.
Facebook and Instagram both got popular as social media. Interacting with your friends.
However ads stick out like a sore thumb among updates from your friends and your friends don’t create enough interesting content to keep you doom-scrolling all day to view more ads. So both transitioned to public entertainment (still called social media for legacy reasons, there is little social about this side of the platforms, it is just media consumption). However this doesn’t seem to be as popular (young people want to talk to each other and show off to their friends) and other platforms that don’t mascarade as a platform for friends are doing better TikTok and YouTube.
It seems like Zuck needs to either
- Figure out how to monetize actual friend-to-friend interaction.
- Build a platform that is designed for public entertainment, not pretending to be for friends.
