Is the Facebook Era Really Over?
Or do we need to recalibrate how we assess Facebook’s success
It’s no secret that we live in a time of two America’s. We subscribe to different information, brought to us by different channels for news, based on two completely different realities — each bolstered by a completely different set of facts and truths. Which is why it should come as no surprise that we also live in a reality with two wildly different beliefs about the future of Facebook. For example, earlier this month, Gina Bianchini, the founder and CEO of Mighty Networks, a software-as-a-service company for brands and businesses stated that “the Facebook era is over.”
“The decision to #deletefacebook today, or in the future, is a personal one. However in the same slow, but potent way that Facebook shifted from being the place that connected us to the people and things we cared about to a haven for bad actors, bad news, and superficiality, Facebook will gradually become less relevant to each of us in our daily lives,” wrote Bianchini in her blog on LinkedIn.
Her point is valid. As early as last July, an article in Recode, noted that Facebook’s user growth has hit a wall. Specifically that in the second quarter of 2018, Facebook added 22 million users — it’s smallest quarterly jump since 2011. To that end, I too, have argued in several blog posts that Facebook’s recent antics — specifically with regard to its utter lack of care to protecting user privacy — has leveled cracks in its vessel.
To be clear…
There is even more truth to the fact that Facebook’s days of meteoric growth are behind them. Foremostly, the fact that Facebook’s third quarter earning report set the tech company on track for its longest quarterly losing streak since 2013.
But here’s where the tale of two Facebook narratives earns its disparity. Don’t mistake Facebook’s slow down with the beginning of its collapse. Doing so, would be foolish and naive.
As I mentioned in a previous blog post…
Let’s not forget that even though Facebook proper may be experiencing a slight decrease in user growth, Instagram — a Facebook property — is thriving. As recently as June, TechCrunch reported that Instagram had reached 1 billion monthly active users, after passing 800 million in September 2017 with 500 million daily users.
Still, history has shown that even the greatest empires collapse. But don’t mistake Facebook for a media empire. It’s something much more powerful. It’s a condition not dissimilar to oxygen for humans or water for fish. As Ellen P. Goodman and Julia Powles of The Guardian recently noted: Facebook is not media, it is the medium through which we experience and understand the world. “A medium is not merely something that feeds us content. It is a condition like air or water, through which we move without noticing,” write Goodman and Powles. In other words, Facebook is not carrying us or even leading us. Instead, Facebook is constituting who we are. “We are, in fact, their media,” Goodman and Powles add.
So what is the point of all this? What am I trying to argue by telling you that on the one hand Facebook is shrinking and on the other that Facebook is at a point that’s beyond the general rules and demarcation points for what can be considered success?
Don’t wait.
Don’t wait for Facebook to fail. Don’t subscribe to the belief that just because Facebook’s numbers are down, that sooner or later it will have to take your privacy more seriously. The truth is that Facebook has assessed the landscape and they’ve found that it’s simply more profitable to peddle lies than it is to introduce tangible, progressive change. And if you’re not on Facebook, that also doesn’t mean you’re free from their influence. Because again, Facebook is not an empire, it doesn’t care whether you buy in or not. It’s a condition, similar to global warming, that has crept its way so deeply into the inner workings of our daily lives that it will take more than just a bad earnings report to rid the world of its corruption. And like global warming, even those people who don’t believe in it’s inevitable influence will suffer when their literal lives come crashing down.
So what can you do instead?
Start using a different messaging platform. Use DUST, use Signal, use any encrypted service and motivate your community of friends and family to do the same. The only way to really stop Facebook is to rip away its community one person at a time. Facebook is only as strong as the number of people who abide by its parameters. If we remove ourselves and the people we communicate with from their equation, we will reclaim our autonomy and our privacy. It’s time to set yourself free and find a new network that helps us stay connected.
