A September 30 story on the CNBC website spells bad news for Facebook: “Facebook Is Scrambling to Escape Stock’s Death Spiral as Users Flee, Sales Drop.”
Writes Jonathan Vanian:
- “Meta [Facebook’s parent company] is trading at its lowest since early 2019, and the stock is one of the worst performers this year in the S&P 500.”
- “The company’s problems are mounting, whether it’s the ad hit from Apple’s iOS changes or the growing threat posed by TikTok.”
In 2021, Facebook’s revenues stood at $1 trillion. But since September, 2021, Meta has lost about two-thirds of its value.
Users are fleeing and advertisers are reducing their spending. Businesses are removing Facebook’s social login button from their websites. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is obsessed with creating what he calls a Metaverse, and is pouring increasing amounts of time and money into this effort.
At present, it’s costing billions of dollars a year to build and many investors view Facebook as a sinking ship.
Meanwhile, the younger generation—those born between the early 1980s to the early 2000s—is moving away from Facebook. Only 27 percent of Millennials used Facebook in 2021, a decline from 48.6 percent in 2017.
They are seeking newer alternatives, such as Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.
The most popular of these is TikTok, the video-sharing website. In September 2021, TikTok claimed it had over one billion users on its platform.
According to an industry insider: “The majority of Facebook users now are those in their 40s and 50s. Personal information leakage controversies surrounding Facebook are also a cause for declining numbers of users.”
Teens no longer see Facebook as cool. Instead, they see it as a space for the older generation to catch up with family.
By 2023, fewer than 15 percent of Facebook users will be under 25.
Its creator and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, at 38, is now worth $36 billion, according to NBC News. In September, 2001, his net worth reached a height of $142 billion, Bloomberg reported. But his net worth dropped by more than 100 billion in 2022.
The reason: Meta, Facebook’s parent company, faces investor pessimism about its future growth trajectory. On October 27, Meta shares were down by 22%, making the company worth approximately $271 billion/
Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerberg
But a desire by teens to avoid a social network used by their parents and grandparents isn’t the only reason for widespread dissatisfaction with Facebook.
Facebook’s arrogant treatment of many of its users is a major reason for their disillusionment—and desertion.
To cite what should be the Bible among corporate CEOs: Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation From Stifling People and Strangling Profits, by Robert Townsend.
First published in 1970, its writing is brisk and its tone is no-nonsense. According to the dust jacket of the paperback edition:
“This is not a book about how organizations work. What should happen in organizations and what does happen are two different things and about as far apart as they can get.
“THIS BOOK IS ABOUT HOW TO GET THEM TO RUN THREE TIMES AS WELL AS THEY DO. The keys that will accomplish this are JUSTICE…FUN…EXCELLENCE.”
One chapter in particular—“Call Yourself Up”—runs only a short paragraph. Yet it is a paragraph that Mark Zuckerberg should tape to his bathroom mirror and re-read every day:
“When you’re off on a business trip or a vacation, pretend you’re a customer. Telephone some part of your organization and ask for help. You’ll run into some real horror shows.”
If Zuckerberg were a Facebook customer, instead of its CEO, he would face “some real horror shows.”
A friend of mine named Dan recently had this experience on Facebook:
“On May 31, I was placed in what Facebook’s users commonly refer to as ‘Facebook Jail’ for 24 hours. My crime: Posting a commentary on the firing of Roseanne Barr for her racist tweet on May 29.
“Specifically: Another Facebook user had already posted a picture of a white woman using a cell phone to call police–and report that a black woman had just wiped out her favorite TV show. (This was clearly a reference to Channing Dungey, entertainment president of the American Broadcasting Company, who made the decision to dump Roseanne after Barr’s racist tweet.)
“Under that photo I had posted a picture of a Ku Klux Klan rally, with a caption to the effect: “Hey, ABC, you can’t fire Roseanne! She’s one of us!”
“Perhaps two hours later I was kicked off Facebook and sent a message that I had violated its “Community Standards.” The picture I had posted of the Klan rally was given, but not the caption I had posted with it.
“Anyone with half a brain should have realized that this was not an expression of support for the Klan but an attack on it—and on Barr for her Fascistic racism.”
Apparently, no one at Facebook had any understanding of irony. Nor could they tell the difference between a post attacking the racism of the Ku Klux Klan and celebrating it.