Most people are using it multiple times a day. Posting photos, stories, sending messages to friends but most people are just using Facebook to see what activities friends are doing during the day. Or lets say it in a better way; to see what other people are ‘liking’ during the day. The Facebook website was launched in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg along with four fellow Harvard College students and roommates. We’ve been using Facebook for over more than 10 years now and I don’t know many friends which are not having Facebook. However, the use of it has changed over time. In the 10 years since Zuckerberg launched Facebook a lot has changed. The popularity of Facebook increased enormously as you can see in the figure stated below.
But how long will this last? And when will be it’s turning point?
Will Facebook stay alive forever or is it inevitable that also Facebook will die one day? And when exactly will it die?
A study examined the reasons users eventually quit the site was held in 2013. This study found the most common reasons were privacy concerns (48%), dissatisfaction with Facebook (14%), negative experiences regarding Friends on Facebook (13%) and the feeling of getting addicted to Facebook (6%). The most Facebook quitters were found to be concerned about privacy. Despite the fact that above reasons are relevant and plausible reasons to stop using Facebook, I don’t think one of the above reasons will be the true reason why Facebook will ever die. From my point of view, Facebook has changed over time from posting your own status towards a look-a-like big channel with countless short and random videos. Nowadays, people seems to like it but over time it will get bored and people will start using Facebook less and less. In my opinion, Facebook has to constantly create new and attractive content to stay alive in the long run.
It is also possible to answer this question with certain theoretical concepts. For example, Negative Networks Effects are one way through which one could possibly forecasts Facebook death date. Negative Networks Effects mean that the value of a the network declines with the number of users participating the network. When negative network effects are becoming true for Facebook, Facebook will slowly die and become obsolete.
Will this happen? Mhmm… I don’t think so. In the future, Facebook at the very least will encounter challenges in its value creation. The exact question is whether or not it will manage to handle these challenges. For the time Facebook is handling these challenges it will keep breathing. How long do you think Facebook will stay alive? Will there be another platform with more users? Or was Facebook just a temporary place for people to meet online?
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#cite_note-liebertpub1-261
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/22/facebook-princeton-researchers-infectious-disease
https://www.quora.com/Will-Facebook-survive-in-the-next-5-years
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/02/03/facebook-then-and-now/
To gain some insides in whether Facebook will die or not, some actual figures will provide some help. For instance, there are 3.6 billion internet users in the world. 1.8 billion connects from Asia and the other 1.8 billion connects from the rest of the world. However, only 559 million people in Asia uses Facebook against the crushing 1.1 billion from the rest of the world (internetworldstats, 2016).
Since the latest reports of Facebook gaining rapid growth in Asia (WSJ, 2016) and an average user growth worldwide (Statista, 2016), I don’t see Facebook dying anytime soon.
However, despite the negative reports about declining usage time of Facebook (Daily Mail, 2016) and a Princeton researcher stating that Facebook will lose 80% of its users in 2017 (The Guardian, 2014), Statista clearly shows that Facebook has always been growing for the last 8 years. Even the growth of Facebook’s active advertisers, which is essential to their revenue growth, is accelerating (Fool, 2016).
To conclude, I don’t think Facebook will die. The figures Statista provides of the last 8 years sketches a fine image of how Facebook is managing itself very well in a rapidly growing industry. Therefore, I assume they won’t die in the near future.
Sources:
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2016/03/15/facebook-sees-big-growth-in-asia-despite-free-basics-controversy/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3628903/Have-reached-peak-Facebook-People-spending-time-social-media.html
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/22/facebook-princeton-researchers-infectious-disease
http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/10/04/facebooks-active-advertiser-growth-is-accelerating.aspx
Hi Wessel,
Thank you for sharing your interesting post. For now, Facebook is able to keep up with competitors. However, when I look at myself and the people around me, I see a decrease in usage. I think Facebook is changing is scope from posting updates and pictures to sharing videos. Also, Facebook changed their privacy policy; they are now able to use your picture for advertising reasons. That is one of the main reasons why I am using Facebook a lot less for posting pictures.
In 2015, Facebook even experienced a decline among younger subscribers (Marketingfacts, 2016). I do think Instagram will eventually become more popular than Facebook among younger people. Also, I believe that there will arrive other social media platforms in the future that will eventually replace Facebook.