Facebook wanted to be the everything social network just like Amazon is the everything store but it doesn't work because we began to see specialization for every segment of Facebook. I honestly don't see appeal why anyone would use Facebook when you literally have better alternatives that are specialized for the particular niche you might be interested in e.g. images, videos, gaming etc.
They got greedy. Word got out about how they'd manipulate the algorithm to get you to spend hours per day there, how aggressively they mined and sold your data, etc. It became unfashionable to use. People who had spent a decade recording their lives and connecting with their friends walked away from their accounts.
In the midst of all that, they bought Instagram. I've recently moved to NYC; paradoxically, people here ask for your Instagram the way that people used to ask for your Facebook.
Social networking isn't quite as consolidated in Meta as dating is in IAC/Match, but it's close.
It was the de facto digital means of communication for social events--the social world in your palm so you could see what everyone was up to, where the parties were, whatever.
I signed on recently (mostly to make sure my creds still worked after at least 7 years of no use) and now it's dreadfully slow and largely just ad slop. It's a remarkable decline in a platform that basically become a joke now.
The particular niche I am into is staying connected to friends and people I like or have an interest in. And reading their posts.
I like to mainly read posts, not watch short videos or see images without too much explanation.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/news/637668/facebook-friends-only-f...
They said my listing was suspicious and needed to verify my identity, which meant sending them a picture of me holding my drivers license next to my face.
I had a lot of other stuff to sell, so I obliged.
They said that wasn’t enough and they required another photo, this time holding my passport by my head.
I thought this was pretty crazy, but also, I had a lot of stuff to sell, and privacy is pretty much already dead so why not?
They said they could not verify my identity.
The end.
It was simple, easy, and reliable.
I do keep up with some friends on Facebook but I’m very selective about adding anyone new.
I'm part of a bunch of book collector groups because it's pretty much the only place on the internet to connect with other people around the world about it.
American friends ditched the site en masse starting around 2012. By now, none of my original American circle is using the site and my timeline/feed is entirely dead except for frequent posts by foreigner friends.
