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by brentm 3938 days ago
> Facebook is headed toward irrelevance.

If you only consider relevant company to be one that is creating a new and disrupt technology as their core product then sure they will have to fight daily not to become irrelevant. However, if you consider relevance to mean something that impacts the daily lives of many people, within the last 30 days they had their first 1B active user day. It's just very hard to displace that many people and so many of them have their lives (and memories) on Facebook in terms of the photos and connections. I am not extremely active on Facebook but having an account just seems like that otherwise missing world directory mixed with a personal life timeline which only increases in value as the years pass.

2 comments

And one other thing -- Maybe less younger people will sign up as time goes on (I don't disagree with the kids not wanting to be where their parents are theory of why FB will fall apart) but FB has shown the right instincts in acquiring (or attempting to acquire) the next social product of the moment or where the "kids are" so to speak. Everyone thought Instagram @ $1B was near insanity at the time and now it looks like the deal of the century in terms of what their estimated private valuation would be today ($37B+ in March [0]).

[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-valuation-2015-3

> within the last 30 days they had their first 1B active user day

I don't put too much stock in these types of numbers that companies release themselves. Facebook has long had issues with fake accounts created by bots, and has shown little interest in curbing that practice (since it inflates their numbers.)

Even if I accept the number at face value, I think that reflects mainly Facebook getting some penetration into other countries outside of the US. In the US it has already begun to decline, and while the Facebook "wave" may be at different points in other regions of the world, it is unlikely it will hold on for 10 years in those other countries given the increased relevance of other forms of social networking.