Ask HN: Do you think there will be full replacement to Facebook?
12 comments
There were full replacements for Compuserve, Prodigy, The Well, TheGlobe, AOL, geocities, friendster, myspace and yes facebook too. They're no Google. They are a walled garden like AOL but won't be around as long as AOL, which, unbelieveably is still kicking -> http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=aol&ql=1 after their $165 billion dollar deal -> http://fortune.com/2015/01/10/15-years-later-lessons-from-th...
Ten to fifty years is a long time to project into the future .... I think there will not be so much a replacement social media web site to Facebook as 1) fragmentation of the social media space. 2) the waning of social media as the predominant focus of personal computing. I would go out on limb and say that software agents will be the next big thing. That is applications that know a lot about you and do things on your behalf without your direct intervention. Less interaction, not more. I think the proliferation of web APIs and big data, make software agents more viable.
Wot! You mean we'll get bored of looking at screens all day and night?
I guess Zapier and IFTTT already started the way for software agents. If we call them Agent 1.0, how do you see Agent 2.0?
I don't know much about Zapier but IFTTT seems to me to be more like the infra-structure for software agents. IFTTT you are still creating recipes. I would like to say that Agent 2.0 would look like the Knowledge Navigator of the Apple videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGYFEI6uLy0). Many moons ago, I remember seeing this video in a graduate computer science course on CHI and freaking out. Now the question is what does Agent 1.0 look like?
I think they have enough users that they don't have to worry too much about a replacement. Instagram is pretty close conceptually to Facebook, but most people don't use it as a direct substitute. One thing way in the future I could see hurting them is when my generation --the first generation of users that used Facebook regularly start dying. If I'm an old man and I'm on Facebook seeing daily updates on people I used to know dying, I will probably stop using Facebook altogether to avoid terminal depression, but might just be me. However, if they can keep on-boarding the younger generations, they could probably survive that, assuming their isn't a hipper substitute by then offering users immortality.
Humans have a stubborn habit of assuming what they experience right now is the steady state future of the universe. It helps our meat selves cope with inevitable futures so we quickly believe things will always be the same from now on. (Also see: housing prices will always go up, my stock prices will always go up, i'm healthy so X doesn't matter to me, etc.)
But, facebook is a fad that will be torn down and replaced one day. If facebook is still around in 50 years, we have failed humanity by letting such a violation of privacy and invasion of decency survive into an even more modern era.
But, facebook is a fad that will be torn down and replaced one day. If facebook is still around in 50 years, we have failed humanity by letting such a violation of privacy and invasion of decency survive into an even more modern era.
I think there will come a time when Facebook is replaced. I don't, however, think it's going to come as an obvious social networking site.
Let's back up a bit to what Facebook was in its nascent days: a place to go and see what others were doing. The quality of the content was high relative to what the users wanted. Someone else here on HN posted within the last week or so a link to Reed's Law (Reed's homepage: http://www.reed.com/dpr/) which basically outlines how social networking groups become more useful. So, the question that someone is going to have to answer to beat Facebook is, 'How can I create something that is providing a large number of people with higher quality content than Facebook?'
Personally, I think it's going to be a Trojan Horse (in the historical sense, not the malicious program sense) that does this. Something that allows users to join (probably using their Facebook account to log in and register), and then facilitates sharing high quality information with others. The first iteration may not be an obvious threat to Facebook, but it's coming. I honestly believe it's going to come from the healthcare space, and probably in about 10 years. Full disclosure: I applied to the YC Fellowship with an idea of how to do this from healthcare, although it's not as obvious from the application, that's the end goal.
Let's back up a bit to what Facebook was in its nascent days: a place to go and see what others were doing. The quality of the content was high relative to what the users wanted. Someone else here on HN posted within the last week or so a link to Reed's Law (Reed's homepage: http://www.reed.com/dpr/) which basically outlines how social networking groups become more useful. So, the question that someone is going to have to answer to beat Facebook is, 'How can I create something that is providing a large number of people with higher quality content than Facebook?'
Personally, I think it's going to be a Trojan Horse (in the historical sense, not the malicious program sense) that does this. Something that allows users to join (probably using their Facebook account to log in and register), and then facilitates sharing high quality information with others. The first iteration may not be an obvious threat to Facebook, but it's coming. I honestly believe it's going to come from the healthcare space, and probably in about 10 years. Full disclosure: I applied to the YC Fellowship with an idea of how to do this from healthcare, although it's not as obvious from the application, that's the end goal.
Why would you still use FB today? There are better photo sharing apps, there are better messenging apps, there are better broadcasting apps. The fact that FB monolithically encloses these is only relevant on a desktop browser.
FBs biggest strength is it's market share, the fact that you can be reasonably assured that you _can_ look up that girl from that party on it.
But that strength is waning, especially in the sub 20s who are strangely rediscovering what sharing on the internet used to be. We have yikyak instead of IRC for community based anon-chat. We have whatsapp and wechat instead of AIM for non-anon chat. We have tumblr instead of geocities for free expression front walls.
Kind of funny how far people think we've come and how innovative these new apps are. It's all just a rehash wrapped up in pretty colors with trendy logos.
It was cool for about 5 years, then people started realizing that maybe it wasn't a good idea to have your smoking cyph posting pictured of bongs on your biometric profile that you got pressured into sharing with the boss and mom. No clue what happened to that early 90s generation. The late 90s are way more savvy.
FBs biggest strength is it's market share, the fact that you can be reasonably assured that you _can_ look up that girl from that party on it.
But that strength is waning, especially in the sub 20s who are strangely rediscovering what sharing on the internet used to be. We have yikyak instead of IRC for community based anon-chat. We have whatsapp and wechat instead of AIM for non-anon chat. We have tumblr instead of geocities for free expression front walls.
Kind of funny how far people think we've come and how innovative these new apps are. It's all just a rehash wrapped up in pretty colors with trendy logos.
It was cool for about 5 years, then people started realizing that maybe it wasn't a good idea to have your smoking cyph posting pictured of bongs on your biometric profile that you got pressured into sharing with the boss and mom. No clue what happened to that early 90s generation. The late 90s are way more savvy.
I (begrudgingly) use Facebook today precisely because of that market share. I agree that there are services that perform the tasks of Facebook more competently (or at least ones that I personally like better) but due to how it's set up, it doesn't do me a lot of good if just about everyone I want to communicate with (in the manner of social/sharing networks at least) is on Facebook.
Facebook managed to grab a huge share of the potential userbase that previous and subsequent services have not. I might like Google+ better for sharing links and photos with friends and family but Facebook is the one that finally got everyone to sign up. There's probably a good portion of Facebook that just won't bother switching to any similar service no matter how much nicer they make the interface or features because it's just too much "friction" for them.
And unlike email where you can host your own or choose from loads of providers, there's not a common protocol that allows you to use a different social sharing service and still communicate with everyone on Facebook. It's not like when I switched my personal email to Gmail in the mid-2000's and could continue to email the same friends and family even though most of them weren't interested in changing providers for more storage. They kept their @aol.com or @yahoo.com or @hotmail.com addresses and I could still send and receive emails.
I honestly don't think anyone's gonna upset this by building a "better Facebook" at this point. If Facebook falls by the wayside I think it will be because the current social-media-type activities are replaced by something else entirely.
Nobody's going to pull up their stakes for some new Facebook+ and maintain two accounts/profiles since half of their contacts don't want to bother. But when more of that sharing and communication starts taking place on a different style of service, whatever form that may take, people will start using FB less and less until it becomes more of a hassle to maintain your account than to leave it.
Facebook managed to grab a huge share of the potential userbase that previous and subsequent services have not. I might like Google+ better for sharing links and photos with friends and family but Facebook is the one that finally got everyone to sign up. There's probably a good portion of Facebook that just won't bother switching to any similar service no matter how much nicer they make the interface or features because it's just too much "friction" for them.
And unlike email where you can host your own or choose from loads of providers, there's not a common protocol that allows you to use a different social sharing service and still communicate with everyone on Facebook. It's not like when I switched my personal email to Gmail in the mid-2000's and could continue to email the same friends and family even though most of them weren't interested in changing providers for more storage. They kept their @aol.com or @yahoo.com or @hotmail.com addresses and I could still send and receive emails.
I honestly don't think anyone's gonna upset this by building a "better Facebook" at this point. If Facebook falls by the wayside I think it will be because the current social-media-type activities are replaced by something else entirely.
Nobody's going to pull up their stakes for some new Facebook+ and maintain two accounts/profiles since half of their contacts don't want to bother. But when more of that sharing and communication starts taking place on a different style of service, whatever form that may take, people will start using FB less and less until it becomes more of a hassle to maintain your account than to leave it.
Not anytime soon. And if there is, it will be something with most focus on mobile and phone numbers. That's why Facebook is already on top of that with Instagram and Whatsapp. Facebook might be in this for the long haul, esp with the stuff they can also do with Oculus.
It's possible that unlike Instagram and Whatsapp, the next hot new app that's popular with young people will be bought by a competitor of Facebook's rather than Facebook - or will just refuse to be bought by anybody and challenge Facebook on their own terms.
It's also possible that open social platforms like Diaspora will start attracting away some of Facebook's more privacy-oriented users.
It's also possible that open social platforms like Diaspora will start attracting away some of Facebook's more privacy-oriented users.
What you have to take into account when guesstimating this is, that while Facebook has a lock-in, many of the obstacles it had are fading away. I am thinking of mainly these two:
1. The typical mom in twenty years will be much easier to get on a new web-/app-platform than the current typical mom.
2. Internationalization beyond the US and Western Europe is becoming easier.
1. The typical mom in twenty years will be much easier to get on a new web-/app-platform than the current typical mom.
2. Internationalization beyond the US and Western Europe is becoming easier.
FB is also struggling... it is not any more this one point of social media. Many young people are not even on FB. This is why e.g. WhatsApp is so critical for FB.
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App.net, Diaspora, Google+ etc. have tried and failed. I don't see any competitor in the near future.
Facebook's weakness is China and Russia.
Sorry guys, but it's true.
Facebook aligned itself too much with one particular nation state and not that there is anything wrong with that ( hell it may even be "morally right" ), it is just that it doesn't work for business.
Businesses right now can be truly global phenomena, much like harking back to the imperial days or Spanish or British companies ( like Swire's and P&O ) companies that had broad interests all around the world.
The most important trait of a global venture ?
Work with everybody.
When companies align themselves politically, they fail to truly engage a global marketplace.
Companies actual political aspect is to be like a reconciling diplomat between disputing parties, it does not behoove them to engage the same disputes as nation states and politics do, they can do a great benefit to themselves, to nations and to people by simply being truly global, rather than narrowly nation state.
Oh, and in 50 - 100 years, it's all going to be "giant corporations" anyway. The period now is just a period of transition, as government's projection of power is shifting toward being executed by corporations.
Companies that hold fast to the past -- nations and borders and such, and refuse to work with everybody for political reasons, are not going to make out. Dying breed.
Of course the insane fake lefty moralists will pretend moral righteousness and champion google's to block itself in China. "So righteous" -- yet really, the best way to serve human rights is to actually serve the people, wherever they are. Had Google been less political and more open to working with the Chinese they could have been a force there.
Same for FB. China is never going to go, "Come in come in, your intelligence agencies are welcome to the comings and goings of our citizens, we therefore embrace your FB"
The Chinese are practical. FB could have worked with them, had it been less political. So could have Google.
Now they missed their chances, swapping results for the fake payoff of a misguided sense of righteousness.
Well ... dying breed. That's what dying breeds do...make choices that don't work, and lead to their extinction.
The best way to create a global harmony is to create global companies.
Of course the fake lefties will pretend no one is allowed to do that, and pretend that they're right by saying others are wrong. Yet this just leads to morally bad outcomes that belie the very causes the fake lefties pretend to support, a contradiction that cuts to the core of the fake left paradox.
If you want more info about the fake left, go read Zizek's piece on the morally corrupt fake left championing of Islamist criminal apologism.
Companies are unavoidably political. It's just that it works for them, and for their customers, and for governments, when they choose to exercise that politics in a way that "works with everybody."
Sorry guys, but it's true.
Facebook aligned itself too much with one particular nation state and not that there is anything wrong with that ( hell it may even be "morally right" ), it is just that it doesn't work for business.
Businesses right now can be truly global phenomena, much like harking back to the imperial days or Spanish or British companies ( like Swire's and P&O ) companies that had broad interests all around the world.
The most important trait of a global venture ?
Work with everybody.
When companies align themselves politically, they fail to truly engage a global marketplace.
Companies actual political aspect is to be like a reconciling diplomat between disputing parties, it does not behoove them to engage the same disputes as nation states and politics do, they can do a great benefit to themselves, to nations and to people by simply being truly global, rather than narrowly nation state.
Oh, and in 50 - 100 years, it's all going to be "giant corporations" anyway. The period now is just a period of transition, as government's projection of power is shifting toward being executed by corporations.
Companies that hold fast to the past -- nations and borders and such, and refuse to work with everybody for political reasons, are not going to make out. Dying breed.
Of course the insane fake lefty moralists will pretend moral righteousness and champion google's to block itself in China. "So righteous" -- yet really, the best way to serve human rights is to actually serve the people, wherever they are. Had Google been less political and more open to working with the Chinese they could have been a force there.
Same for FB. China is never going to go, "Come in come in, your intelligence agencies are welcome to the comings and goings of our citizens, we therefore embrace your FB"
The Chinese are practical. FB could have worked with them, had it been less political. So could have Google.
Now they missed their chances, swapping results for the fake payoff of a misguided sense of righteousness.
Well ... dying breed. That's what dying breeds do...make choices that don't work, and lead to their extinction.
The best way to create a global harmony is to create global companies.
Of course the fake lefties will pretend no one is allowed to do that, and pretend that they're right by saying others are wrong. Yet this just leads to morally bad outcomes that belie the very causes the fake lefties pretend to support, a contradiction that cuts to the core of the fake left paradox.
If you want more info about the fake left, go read Zizek's piece on the morally corrupt fake left championing of Islamist criminal apologism.
Companies are unavoidably political. It's just that it works for them, and for their customers, and for governments, when they choose to exercise that politics in a way that "works with everybody."
[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9990919