[bsimpson]

For ~a decade, Facebook replaced the address book. You wouldn't ask for a phone number; you'd add someone on Facebook.

They got greedy. Word got out about how they'd manipulate the algorithm to get you to spend hours per day there, how aggressively they mined and sold your data, etc. It became unfashionable to use. People who had spent a decade recording their lives and connecting with their friends walked away from their accounts.

In the midst of all that, they bought Instagram. I've recently moved to NYC; paradoxically, people here ask for your Instagram the way that people used to ask for your Facebook.

Social networking isn't quite as consolidated in Meta as dating is in IAC/Match, but it's close.

[nyarlathotep_]

It's hard to explain to Zoomers/younger people how cool Facebook was in the late 2000s to early 2010s.

It was the de facto digital means of communication for social events--the social world in your palm so you could see what everyone was up to, where the parties were, whatever.

I signed on recently (mostly to make sure my creds still worked after at least 7 years of no use) and now it's dreadfully slow and largely just ad slop. It's a remarkable decline in a platform that basically become a joke now.

[mrkramer]

>It was the de facto digital means of communication for social events--the social world in your palm so you could see what everyone was up to, where the parties were, whatever.

I think Zuck realized pretty fast that specialized competition is coming that's why he scooped up Instagram and WhatsApp so fast. Without Instagram and WhatsApp, Facebook is botched, something like Google without Chrome and Android. I really can't see how Facebook can become relevant again, their time is gone, people got tired of it. Like you said it was awesome back in the day because it was the first real social network and everybody was on Facebook but nowadays no way 90% of your friends are on Facebook. They are scattered around, mostly on Instagram, WhatsApp and Snapchat. Zuck got lease on life when he acquired Instagram and WhatsApp because they are still relevant and will be for quite some time.

[nyarlathotep_]

> really can't see how Facebook can become relevant again, their time is gone, people got tired of it.

Yeah my thoughts exactly.

I really can't tell who or what it's supposed to be for. It seems almost anachronistic--I still have such a positive association with the name because of fond memories of what it was ~12-15 years ago. Ironically it's only that was as I've hardly used it in a decade.

Come to think of it, it probably has something to do with the timing--it was a cornerstone of Millennial youth and the emergence of social media when it was still a new idea and before, well, everything that's happened since.

I really wonder what the actual user metrics are by type of engagement and age now (not some nonsense like DAU or something that captures an occasional idle scroll or background process).

Maybe it's just my American-centric view and it's used more worldwide? I remember messenger being a big thing for some time too, but I think that's also faded?