I’m going on what I’ve observed in FB users around the world. Their most dedicated users are people in developing countries whom they have convinced that Facebook is the internet.
Because the people that live in those developing countries are fellow human beings, and generally have no economic/political power relative to Facebook and other MNCs.
This is not true in developing countries. From my experience, the poorer a country, the more likely you are to see extensive, serious use of Facebook. And the revenue growth opportunity is huge for FB in these places. It is already flat or slightly negative in highly advanced countries.
There's also a scary number of people in developing countries who will report that they use Facebook, but not 'the internet'. Developing countries are the market Facebook could dominate, in the same way Microsoft dominated computers for normal people.
In a lot of developing countries, Facebook is often the only app that a significant part of the population uses. And that includes young adults as well.
I'm aware of this 'colonising strategy' of FB in developing markets and I find it really sad that many people's first experience of the net and the web will have been FB.
Maybe in the U.S. I was in Asia few months ago and I came across people who were new to Facebook. Facebook still has a honeymoon period with those people who just discovered their 'new' platform. Given the massive population in Brazil and India that would be a sizable chunk of users.
Key point to remember: A user in the developed world is MUCH more valuable to FB, so even if only westerners quit, each westerner is worth up to 35x what someone from the developed world is worth, in terms of ad income.
They may have '2 billion' users, but they're super vulnerable to an exodus of even 5% of them in terms of income, if they're from the right regions.
(This is based on my hazy recollection of stats which had a US FB user worth $35USD to FB in income, where someone from the developed world drew in <$1USD)
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