I can envision facebook taking quite a dip as the batch of new internet users that have joined in the past 2 years get tired of it and find out there ARE other websites.
I def. see facebook fizzling out over the next 5-10 years as they get more aggressive in trying to wall people into their network and try to weave their way into government and banking.
I suspect Facebook won't be around in 10 years. Social media sites and services tend not to last forever, and with the way public opinion seems to have turned against the company and the inevitably of a competitor coming along with a new focus/different features, it's almost certain Facebook's days are numbered.
Eventually, they'll be another Myspace. Another Digg. Another Friendster. Whatever.
In the short term, well that's harder to predict. They'll probably get in a bit of hot water over their attitudes towards privacy and the spread of 'fake news' on the platform. They're already being called up in front of governments to answer for their actions, and I suspect things could get much worse for them there.
And then the inevitable will happen. People will keep calling for Facebook to change, and eventually it will. In a way that basically destroys the selling point of the site and drives people off to that hip new startup offering an alternative.
Facebook's going to be here a bit longer. Sure, I think we've all noticed we use it less than we used to, but Facebook will only slowly decline until a truly superior replacement comes along. Then you can kiss it goodbye.
I expect the Internet and social media is going to continue to evolve and blow past what Facebook was able to accomplish faster than anyone thinks. I don't expect Facebook will last as the largest social network for much more than 5 years. And the reason is simple, it only took Facebook that long to go from 1 million to 1 billion users. It's successor will probably be able to do it in half that time. I bet we're only a couple years away from that eventuality.
As Facebook is getting larger and larger, it gets harder and harder for them to grow users/revenue/time on site. So they start adjusting some things so they keep growing. But these things also make Facebook less compelling for existing users, which leads to eventual attrition.
I've heard this same thing about AOL, MySpace, etc. and really, who knows. People who have come to the internet and use nothing but Facebook will discover there are actually other sites out there, or they may get tired of Mafia Wars spam. Someone could create something more innovative. I think Facebook will continue to become more valuable, but they're not going to take over the entire world.
I’d say the fall of facebook will be like the fall of Rome. It’ll peter along for a while dysfunctionally and then there will be a rapid decline when something in the model gives way. There’ll still be vestiges of it across the Internet for many years to come though.
Facebook isn't doomed, they're going to end up like Yahoo, in my opinion. Granted some consider that worse than death.
Their core product is going to grow stale and begin to erode. Younger demographics will abandon the uncool service in favor of the latest platforms. And there will always be a new, cooler service for young demographics to join instead of the network where their parents hang out.
The dominance Facebook once enjoyed will peak and fracture.
People don't stop using Google because it's boring (which it has been for a long time, it's a search engine after all). People will however never start using Facebook in the first place if it's lame. I'd argue we're going to see a lot of that in the next five years, as the first teen generation to have a wide adoption of smart phones comes through, with tons of good apps to choose from. And to the extent that younger users sign up for Facebook, they'll use it a lot less.
Five or six years from now, Facebook will be a slow growing, very mature social network. They'll be profitable, and Wall Street will be bored, and will give them a drastically lower multiple (leaving their stock not worth much more than it is today; $4b or $5b in profit * 20 to 30 multiple). It'll probably stick around in that stagnant shape much like Yahoo has, for a very long time.
For me personally Facebook doesn't matter. I wouldn't care less if it dies. I remember when I joined Facebook as part of my university. I was a hardcore user back then. May be this is a bold prediction. I predict Facebook will die a death like yahoo eventually. Most people I knew who were big Facebook users have all moved on. it'll be like having a Hotmail account.
It will certainly be a regional phenomenon. Facebook will become blocked and/or uncool in some country and it will spread. Also generational, the younger you are the more tolerance for constantly trying new things will be. I don't see my mid sixties mother ever abandoning her facebook quilting groups or her chats with her cousins, but her kids and her grandkids will eventually move on to something else. Just like AOL it will shamble on shedding engagement (user numbers can be juked and what constitutes an 'active user' in their shareholder reports will constantly be relaxed to prop up their egos) until one day it's a footnote.
I seriously think Facebook is going to collapse soon. It's so overhyped it's not even funny -- just look to their stocks to see a prime example. So many people are just itching to get away from it now that it can't last long. We'll see, of course. But it is soon to be a Myspace, et al.
This coupled with the abandoning of Places makes me think Facebook is undergoing a serious narrowing of focus. While I'm clearly not a fan (as you can probably judge from my comments), I'd still like to see a company that gets lots of press do something innovative or, in absence of that, just new and different. The pessimist in me thinks it will be yet another web platform play.
Why do you say that? Do you think people are going to lose interest in the things they do on Facebook, or do you think a new competitor is going to provide a product sufficiently better than Facebook to take over the market?
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