by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I was one of the first people to use Facebook when it left the confines of universities. Now, of course, eventually I got “zuccked” when my ranting against Trump grew too virulent.
Flash forward and we find ourselves in an interesting situation. But for many billions of dollars, Facebook would be in deep, deep trouble. Facebook has always been a utility that served a social purpose. And, yet, we find ourselves in a situation where Facebook is very popular — among Olds like me.
Young people, meanwhile, have migrated towards things like Tik-Tok.
With that in mind, Facebook is working on becoming more like Tik-Tok — whatever that means.
And, yet, I would suggest that Facebook may be doomed. It’s doomed because it has a vested interest in staying pretty much like what it is now. It can only change so much. If they do too much of a change, then they risk the alienated of Olds who, by definition, don’t like change.
In a sense, Facebook faces a Blockbuster problem, where their legacy business is so powerful that they just can’t innovate like buying Netflix or go into streaming. But they do have many, many billions of dollars and they can always just buy or innovate their way out of things.
But it definitely seems as though Facebook faces gradual, then fast decline. Of course, it’s possible that Facebook’s parent company Meta is going to take things to the next level by cornering the metaverse market. That’s a very real possibility. That is, at least, what Zuck is hoping for.
