Is downfall of Facebook near? That’s really a shocking news to hear. Right? But looking at the light of some recent events this seems to be possible. Recently Facebook’s CEO admitted WhatsApp as an unprofitable messaging application. Because it is free to use so the time spent by people on other social media apps has currently declined. This poses a challenge for the Facebook’s own platform.
On April 24, Mark Zuckerberg said ” Our stance on data localisation is a risk. This means Facebook may suffer if it is blocked in a major country. Growing popularity of WhatsApp among users in major countries, like India has led to decline is use of Facebook app for connecting people. During a conference call with analysts Zuckerberg said to work on privacy-focused platform. Facebook’s News feed is the chief source of revenue currently. We may get a clear picture if we look why people prefer WhatsApp more.
Facebook owns the two popular messaging app, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.The two messaging apps have a combined user base of approximately 2.8 billion people and each of them process billions of messages daily. Coming to the comparison, Facebook is more like a public platform, while WhatsApp is private platform. The privacy of WhatsApp combined with its other features like low bandwidth usability, calling and a simple design, is more of a people’s choice. There were many successful attempts to monetize WhatsApp, which began around when business accounts was announced for WhatsApp. Some new upcoming features include WhatsApp product catalogue, which promotes monetization of WhatsApp.
Additionally Facebook changed its icon many a times and still working on it to make Facebook more attractive to users. This can be said as side-effects of the declining use of Facebook. Facebook app is a heavy application filled with many unwanted advertisements and feeds, which really is nuisance for users. The number of active users of Facebook has declined from 300 million to around 250 million in recent years. According to stock report of Facebook, there has been a decline in previous year, about 20% decline, following which it lost its value by $120 billion.
Recently there was havoc as, investors called for resignation of Mark Zuckerberg, supported by Open MIC Chairman Michael Connor. Connor said, “It is long past time for Facebook to separate the roles of company CEO and Chairman” and also demanded Mark to be resign or be fired. In an interview by The Atlantic, Mark refused to resign, saying that they can work out these issues.
During these statements, Facebook stocks are declining daily.
On top of this, Hughes, co-founder of Facebook, is trying to breakup the company, saying ” I am disappointed with the Facebook team, for sacrificing security of public.” Although Hughes being opposed by some people, his statement has spread the fire of downfall of Facebook.
Declined users, public and security issues and ups-downs between executives and investors, may lead to breakup of the company. People are trying to save, but maybe this is downfall of FB .
