[brilliantcode]

This shows the underlying utility of Facebook compared to other tech giants distilled in to a really generic scenario.

- You go to Google to research what to buy.

- You go to Amazon to give Amazon your hard earned money.

- You go to Facebook to brag what you bought.

Yet the market cap of Facebook rivals those two with far less revenue and highest multiplier.

This cannot last.

[AnthonyMouse]

In theory the reason for this is that Facebook is "stickier" than Google or Amazon. If Google search isn't working for you, you can switch to something else in a heartbeat. If Facebook isn't working for you, you have to get all your friends to switch to something else before you can.

The problem is this is also going to be Facebook's downfall at some indeterminate future date. Because if some other social network ever becomes more popular than Facebook, Facebook is over.

[chongli]

if some other social network ever becomes more popular

This is why Facebook buys out anything new that looks like it might threaten Facebook's dominance.

[AznHisoka]

Most people can't switch from google to something else in a heartbeat...

we can email our friends, text them or meet them in the bar though.

[glibgil]

I cannot email my friends

[idiot_stick]

I'm relatively tech savvy, but I'm not sure my significant other would know where to go if Google was down. DDG or even Bing are not top of mind. What else is there?

[Filligree]

Not that it matters.

I can't be the only one who uses `httping www.google.com` to check if the internet is up?

[autokad]

bing is actually pretty good. sometimes google's selection bias to what it knows about me prevents me from getting to the results I want so i either search in incognito mode or search in bing.

[thehardsphere]

There's precedent for this: MySpace.

[Bombthecat]

It wasn't a social network though.

In Germany only bands add musicians used it.

No social pressure to stay at MySpace.

[thehardsphere]

It was a social network; just an inferior one to Facebook. They lost to Facebook because Facebook was a more pleasant site for social networking, which made it more popular.

If you were in Germany, you may not have seen this, because MySpace didn't enter Germany until 2006 or 2007. At that point, Facebook was already starting to beat them with new users. By 2008, the established user base of MySpace was fleeing in droves to Facebook. The network effects that would have created social pressure to stay actually caused it to collapse even faster.

There is nothing that would prevent this exact thing from happening to Facebook. If a better site were to come along (or if Facebook were to become vastly less competitive than they are now), the social pressure could actually cause them to collapse just as fast as MySpace did.

[adventured]

In fact it can last. Your information is wrong.

Amazon has a radically higher multiple than Facebook. About six times higher, being charitable with Amazon's flaky net income.

Facebook will hit $13 or $14 billion in net income for fiscal 2017. Explain to me how a 27 or 28 pe ratio is unsupportable when you're growing net income at 30% or higher.

Meanwhile Google is growing its net income at 18% with a PE of 30. A far more lopsided ratio than Facebook has now, and one that is going to get much worse in just the next four quarters.

So you're wrong on both counts. Facebook has the superior value proposition based on valuation to net income + factoring growth rate.

[brilliantcode]

please provide souces