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I read "it's dying" by people on Discord and Reddit all the time, but the numbers prove otherwise. It's been going up this entire time and sitting over 3 billion MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS!
I feel like the bubble around people on other platforms saying "who uses Facebook anymore lol" is kind of wild given the numbers. Keep in mind these are active users not just abandoned accounts.
Facebook Marketplace, it is literally the only reason I even use it.
Because non technically savvy people get comfortable and it's always difficult to get them to move, so everyone who wants to change, can't because they end up alone and social media only works if you have people to be social with. Younger people will have the same problem with TikTok and the like when their friends age and they want to move. Only new generations start with a clean slate and can get all their friends to start out at the new sites.
It looks to me like "social media" breaks down into a few categories: Video/image sharing (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Douyin, Kuaishou); Messaging (WhatsApp, WeChat, FB Messenger, Telegram, Snapchat, QQ); Microblogging (Twitter, Weibo); and tangled fog of pulsating yearning (Pinterest).
Then, there's Facebook, which defies easy categorization. It does all of the above, plus more. It's how people maintain loose connections with other people that they may not talk to every day. What is its competition? Basically, I think it remains popular because it's the default, nothing else can replace it.
3 billion monthly active sure sounds a little excessive. I wonder if there's some shenanigans going on, combining other facebook's services.
Where I'm from. Facebook is free of charge on data connections on some Telcos.
That's why almost all people with data connection, whether pre paid or post paid are most likely using Facebook.
A while back I remember hearing "dying" was only accurate in the West, but that was a matter of years ago so it may or may not still be true.
This says nothing about how much they use reach platform though. Just logging into Facebook and checking what's up over a month will count here.
People don't really delete their facebook account. Just keep it around. And at one point I'm pretty sure everyone had an account.
Does those number include people that only use the account with other pages widgets? Like "access with your Meta account" and shit like that.
I use Facebook. I am not in touch with very many of my relatives. The few that I am in touch with are all on Facebook. I also live a significant distance from pretty much all of my friends and that's a way I can keep in touch with them. On top of that, my brother, who is on the spectrum, prefers to communicate with me that way. In fact, I would probably never hear from him until my mother died if I didn't because he's never called or emailed me.
But... here is how I use Facebook: I only follow select friends and relatives who aren't too annoying- which means following about 10-15 people and unfollowing all the others, I tell it every time I see an ad I never want to see again, and I am only in groups that are either small and personally significant to me (like the group for my relatives) and a couple of others that I mostly just look at and don't participate in.
No arguments, no political unpleasantness, nothing that makes me angry or upset unless something bad is happening to someone I care about, and honestly it's not unpleasant. I think I've maybe blocked three people the entire time I've been on Facebook and all three did something personal to me offline that made me decide to cut off contact with them.
Sure, they're hoovering up my data, but so is everyone else.
Because that is where the regular people are and I for one won't be bothered to try convince them otherwise because I know it is futile. I'll just check in every now and then to keep in touch with them and that's why I'm still there.
This is it. Lemmy users are completely unaware of the extent to which they are not like normal people.
It fulfils roles as
It's large enough that any amount of enshittification is compensated by network effect.
A significant number of those are not from the USA.
Yeah, not surprised at all. I know many people for whom Facebook is 90% of their internet usage, and some people I know use the words 'Facebook' and 'internet' interchangeably. Personally, I deleted my account well over a decade ago.
I wonder if we could see how many new users each year (without bots), I'd wager their growth is pretty stagnant because they already have so many users that nearly every person has an account.
I use it because it has what I want.
It has my local community group who discuss ideas and plan events. It has my mother's group who only use Facebook messenger to communicate. It has my extended family who live overseas. If I left and asked them to send me pictures I would only get a few a year, this way I see pics every week.
Do I hate the idea of it? Yes. Would I like to delete my account? Yes. Is the trade-off worth it for me to stay? Also yes.
I'm in Canada, and I'm pretty locked into Facebook for a few things:
I have and sometimes even use it. Most important reasons: some interest groups stuck on FB (at best they move to Instagram), and my municipality posts their news/info there. Sure they have the official notifications but the really useful stuff is on FB (and I hate it, though I also get why)
It'll probably stay insanely popular until the boomers die off. They're not gonna switch to another one, but I don't any of the younger gens gravitating toward it.
Network effect. That's why we need to keep the fediverse alive: so futur generation aren't forced to signed into Facebook, Discord or whatever would be (or would have been) trendy.
