Collapse - The End of Facebook Is Nigh

[cronus]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/neil-gi ... 04182.html

Collapse - The End of Facebook Is Nigh

I have a dramatic and perhaps outrageous prediction: the end of Facebook is looming. Perhaps not this month, or next, but it's coming. And when the fall does come it will be swift, and it will be brutal.

Now I realize at this point I might already have lost you. Facebook has over 1.3 billion users. It has become a critical part of the lives of roughly one in seven of the earth's population. It has the kind of cash mountain that allows it to snap up companies it sees as either threats or useful for billions of dollars. And there's a fair chance you might be reading this having seen the link on Facebook.

If you look at the headline indicators - massive user base, huge pile of cash, snapping up companies like a carbohydrate hungry super model grasping for the finger food at a gallery opening - then what I am suggesting might seem insane.

But if you look at the underlying indicators you see a very different picture. Facebook begins to look a little like the Kingdom of Rome just before it fell, when the consensus was that it was invincible. It is worth remembering that, just like the sacking of the mighty Latin Empire, very few people saw either 9/11 or the Credit Crunch coming, even though all the signs were there.

These signs are the leading indicators that many industries now need to keep an eye on and handle. We are living in an era of protracted disruption and change - a period when many established businesses are going to fall as new, and in many cases as yet unimagined attackers and innovators, emerge.

So what are these signs?

In Jared's Diamond's 2005 book 'Collapse', he identified four factors that led to the sudden spectacular collapse of what looked like mighty unshakeable societies. If we look at Facebook all four now apply.

(continued)

[Tero]

It's addictive to own such a thing and run it. Very few of these guys sell the company at the peak.

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

I blame lead water pipes.

[JimC]

I am, and shall remain, a Facebook virgin, so its fate is a matter of supreme indifference to me...

[klr]

For once, I am engaged by a Scumple thread.

[rainbow]

I blame lead water pipes.

It isn't actually the pipes but the fluoride which they put in the water which releases the lead and makes people stupid and compliant to the controllers.

[klr]

Flouride ... it's just a commie scheme to get at our precious bodily fluids:

[JimC]

Flouride ... it's just a commie scheme to get at our precious bodily fluids:

Flouride, eh...

Those evil commies! How dare they put wheat to such a fiendish use!

[mistermack]

I've never understood facebook.
But then, I've never understood advertising.
Who are these people, who buy things, because they see an advert?

I can't think of one thing, in my lifetime, that I've bought because of an advert. I'm sure that there must be some, but I can't think of any.

Maybe it can work indirectly on people like me. A friend buys a pint of John Smiths, because he saw a tv advert, and decides he likes it. Then he say's '' what do you want '' and I say, I'll have same as you, and then decide I quite like it. That could happen I guess.

I sometimes deliberately look at the offers in Aldi. I'm not sure that I'm responding to advertising there, as I seek it out, rather than glance at it on facebook or something.

There must be a lot of people who buy things in response to advertising though. Otherwise these giant companies just wouldn't exist.

[piscator]

I've never understood facebook.
But then, I've never understood advertising.
Who are these people, who buy things, because they see an advert?

I can't think of one thing, in my lifetime, that I've bought because of an advert. I'm sure that there must be some, but I can't think of any.

Maybe it can work indirectly on people like me. A friend buys a pint of John Smiths, because he saw a tv advert, and decides he likes it. Then he say's '' what do you want '' and I say, I'll have same as you, and then decide I quite like it. That could happen I guess.

I sometimes deliberately look at the offers in Aldi. I'm not sure that I'm responding to advertising there, as I seek it out, rather than glance at it on facebook or something.

There must be a lot of people who buy things in response to advertising though. Otherwise these giant companies just wouldn't exist.

Ever eat at McDonald's or considered an Apple computer?

Facebook has bottled exclusivity. The primary thing FB has going for it is that one can exclude others.
If one considers how much of human social interaction is based upon exclusion, he may appreciate how Zuckerberg caught lightning in a jar.

[mistermack]

Ever eat at McDonald's or considered an Apple computer?

I've never eaten at McDonald's. I have considered an Apple computer, but only at an auction, to buy to sell on for profit. And I didn't bid in the end.

I did eat some Kentucky fried chicken once, in Banff Canada, but I wasn't paying. It was a take-away, and it was ok. But most food IS ok, when you're a bit hungry.

I don't think any of it involved me being persuaded by an ad to buy something.

I'm sure I have, but I just can't think of it. In fact it's bugging me now, trying to think of SOMETHING, because I must have.

[pErvinalia]

Of course you have. Unless you're non-human. Oh wait...

[cronus]

Advertising is like religion, like the stock market. Money depends on faith, is a irrational construct and bogus to the core. Don't see so many a-moniests about for some reason?

[cronus]

Advertising is like religion, like the stock market. Money depends on faith, is a irrational construct and bogus to the core. Don't see so many a-moniests about for some reason?

[pErvinalia]

You can say that again!