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Comment by timdellinger | Hacker News Reader

As much as I agree with the overall premise (Facebook won't be king of the mountain forever), I'm still a bit unsure about what the driving force will be for users to go from Facebook to "open" alternatives.

The driving force for leaving AOL was clear: there's a big, exciting internet out there that's more interesting and innovative than AOL chatrooms and AOL keywords, and the user base was also getting a little more comfortable with computers and didn't need AOL to hold it's hand so much any more.

I don't see a similar driving force for leaving Facebook. As a matter of fact, Facebook is embracing innovation, pre-emptively embracing whatever things might give users a reason to jump ship.

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We've already seen one mass-user migration from MySpace to Facebook. What happens when a newcomer caters to the needs of a large enough portion of the Facebook crowd that you get fragmentation? Will people simply accept the social fiefdoms, or will they seek out something different? Something more open?

Were this new, open network to exist, you could re-write the statement in your second paragraph to read:

"There's a big, exciting open social network out there that's more interesting and innovative than Facebook messages and friend feeds, and the user base is also getting a little more comfortable with computers and don't need Facebook to hold it's hand so much any more."

That's not to say I don't think Facebook would react positively and hook in to any open networks, but it's going to take some serious momentum to get them to pivot.

And yahoo to google. Facebook has a bigger moat because of logins, but, erm, I still think messaging is a pain in the ass.

It was extensibility and low barrier-to-entry that ultimately gave the web its edge over the centralized online services. Growing corporate beurocracies couldn't keep up with the creativity happening in the wild.

If social is a frontier with similarly unrealized potential, an open platform will eventually emerge and innovation will happen there. Cool new things that Facebook can't wrap their head around will draw people away.

One of those new things will become so popular and so essential that its centralized control becomes a general threat, and all this happens again.

Also, it would be foolish to think that Facebook isn't also aware of this analogy. I am certain they are looking at how AOL lost their stronghold and working to correct those mistakes. That is likely the driving force behind FB's willingness to participate in the open web (on their terms).

I'm sure they are aware of the analogy, but they are also enjoying the Goldman Sachs sponsored money-go-round and will eventually need to step off.

I'm not sure the comparison is so precise that the outcome is predicted. There's no sure bet that Facebook will go the way of AOL.

I like this comparison more as a mitigating factor to closed-web alarmism. This is not the first time the open web has felt itself under attack. And if a big player DOES make moves to try to get in between the free flow of information we all know and love, there are historical examples of the free web fighting back, and winning!

I don't use Facebook, but I don't think it's evil... yet. But it's shown some scary tendencies. It's nice to know we've seen a company abuse it's massively dominant market share, and pay.

I agree with you, and came ere to say what you have -- however I can name a few reasons why FB users will leave/choose to be non-participants.

(Disclaimer, I do not have, nor shall I ever have a FB account)

Lets assume that in the next few years FB userbase doubles. 20% of the population of the planet has an account.

The amount of data held on those users is immense, and as such, of keen interest to the corporate oligopoly that is government -- There is a very good incentive alone to not have an account on FB.

I am sure there will be a not-insignificant number of people whose ability to get jobs/keep jobs will be inhibited by FB.

I also can imagine FB fueling interest in even more privacy as well - and groups of people with a personal desire to have absolutely ZERO information about them online will be a small but real niche in the populous.

I like the sentiment, but I just want to share pictures from my latest beer pong victory man!

The point is that humans are horrible at risk modeling, particularly teen agers and those in early adulthood.

We as a society seem to be heading towards an expectation of less privacy, which makes Facebook and Google easier to tolerate.

The reason Facebook will fail is when a fundamental shift happens in society that Facebook isn't designed to handle. Facebook really came about because of a mobile population coupled with a need to track our social graphs. Even 30 or 50 years ago facebook couldn't have existed, because everyone you wanted to talk to was only a few minutes drive away.

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