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Comment by WhiteSource1 | Hacker News Reader

Very few. "Network effects."

This won't hurt them. Gen Z not joining FB will.

If Gen Z joins other Facebook-owned social networks in stead it won't hurt them in the least. Facebook might not be hype anymore but Instagram and WhatsApp seem to do just fine with the young ones, at least as far as I can tell as someone in his 30s.

Well arguably facebook the product has been the problem, not facebook the coorporation. Those other products you mention don't have the same "put all information about yourself on here" design, and nowhere near the amount of news/politics on them.

The other products Facebook own literally are "put all information about yourself on here" applications? I notice that if I talk about something on whatsapp I see some sort of ad on instagram around it etc.

Supposing that the focus switches from Facebook to these other platforms how long until you see exactly the same patterns in these applications? We're talking about Facebook's core monetization strategy here, if they feel it's threatened I'm sure they'll do everything they can to "correct" that.

I agree, but the full effect of Gen Z won't be felt for 5 or 10 years. And they're definitely on Instagram, which still provides much more targeting ability to an advertiser than every other social site in the world apart from LinkedIn. Twitter doesn't even register.

> And they're definitely on Instagram, which still provides much more targeting ability to an advertiser than every other social site in the world apart from LinkedIn.

Can you explain this? I've put far less info into my Instagram profile than I have any other social network. They definitely slurped up my FB profile, but they wouldn't have that advantage for someone who skipped it. I'm a very light user of Instagram, so I think I'm missing something.

Less Instagram and more snap for the younger kids.

In general, I find each generation has its own preferred social platform — Facebook for generation X, Instagram for millennials, and Snap for whatever we’re calling whoever comes after. Each of these platforms seems to reflect the collective concerns of each generation.

I think FB has scooped up the older half of millennials. FB was the hot thing as they were just getting to college, when it was still limited to college kids. We can't discount outside of US/Europe though — they're big over there too.

As for Snap, they definitely have Gen Z or whatever it's called, but I don't think the data on Snap is as strong. And Instagram has a strong hold on them too. Most teenagers I know keep Snap/Insta, and if they had to pick between the two, it'd be Insta.

Yes, I think there's a natural "churn" with these things. A lifecycle was first identified for MUD users decades ago, and there are already ""dead"" social networks to show that it can happen: Bebo, Orkut, Myspace, and so on.

Except they're all joining Instagram

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