I quit Facebook in 2012. I cannot imagine what's there but in 2019 I had to create a new account to test some development stuff, and checked friends and family and it was pretty much dead.
The thing about Facebook is that it's a far more functional social network than the popular alternatives. It's pretty much the go-to for running local community groups.
Glad I don't spend time there anymore either.
Unless they are in a developing country or a place where young people have very low agency, such as southeast Asia. For instance, in the Philippines, Facebook might as well be the internet. People there actually do believe FB is "the internet" and it's the only app they use on their phones.
Generally you can't function here without Meta: businesses are either on FB or Instagram (with some on TikTok too), and some people exclusively communicate via Messenger on data only plans where FB data is subsidized by the telco.
It was quite sad when we moved here and had just executed a personal extraction from all Meta properties. When in Rome, I guess.
If you have kids in school there, you can't keep up with school news, closings, etc. unless you're on Facebook. The schools, teachers, PTA, everything is on Facebook. All restaurants are on Facebook. Every single government entity and office is on Facebook. All DM traffic is on Messenger. Anybody selling anything is on Marketplace.
"What's so bad about that?" you might ask. It's this: in many cases, the only way you can contact any of these entities is on Facebook. When you try to explain to Filipinos that Facebook is a walled garden and a silo, they look at you as if smoke is coming out of their ears—they just can't comprehend data freedom and independence because these concepts are extremely impaired in their culture.
It's really depressing to think about these people's lives, but nobody should get too depressed because they don't know any better and are satisfied to be cattle. They'll happily use their device for absolutely nothing else but to flip between Facebook and Mobile Legends all day, every day, completely unaware that there's a whole other online world out there.
Meanwhile I haven't used it in 15+ years and don't ever feel the need for it. Probably in part because my better two-thirds has that side of things covered.
I think "Facebook is dead" is a trap for people who can only reason about the world through their own perspective.
I am in a few photography groups and see some photos people want comments on all the time and I'm always saying "It's not the length of the lens but how you use it" and stuff like that.
I find out about community events like local bands and broom dancing all the time on Facebook... Students do tell me though that they think it is dead.
Its ubiquitous for reselling.
It's hard to imagine because when you're out, and peek back in, your account no longer contains strong interest signals, and so your feed contains absolute junk (scams, engagement bait, etc.)
Whereas a heavy user would see tailored and targeted (and one can argue, useful) posts.
When normal people noticed the tremendous drop in engagement from friends on their personal content, most of them stopped posting. So today, even if you find the hidden option (Feeds->Friends) that gives that feature, there’s nearly nothing of value left. For me, I have two friends still regularly posting, but 2/3 of their “posts” are just political links or reshares.
It is true that it is useful for things. I have groups about niche interests or local stuff that still function, but Meta could decide at any time to remove most group posts from the feed the same way they did with “friend posts” and links. If they do that, it will probably severely damage the usefulness of Facebook to people who use it for that kind of purpose, the same way as it did for people who used it to keep in touch with friends.
The only type of user that doesn’t need to worry is the one who wants to use Facebook as a lens to see popular viral content from strangers.
Nowadays I sign into my FB account every 3-6 months or so to find something specific about someone, and I see that my feed is dominated by 4-5 people (out of around 1,000 "friends"). If I'm curious and start searching for other friends specifically, nearly all of of them have not posted in years.
Sure, there are some active community-type spaces there, but that is a very small part of what FB used to be.