Thread by @polotek

It's easy to make fun of Facebook's name change. But I think it is going to have the intended effect. They are going from having a highly recognizable and unique name to a generic and forgettable one. It will absolutely help them shed the bad brand around the old name.

This also prepares them for the future inevitability of Facebook the product fading into obsolescence. They can see that on the horizon. As long as the company name is the same as the flagship product, the company's fortunes decline along with that product.

All I'm saying is this is a very smart strategy and I think some people are missing it. I have to revise my prediction. Facebook the product will be gone or obsolete. But Zuck is already planning to replace it with another addictive chaos machine.

https://twitter.com/polotek/status/1129244427942129664?t=9BKCzzdWJFZchZykil676A&s=19

How many people will try the new thing?

A lot. We have to keep perspective. Facebook has a bad rep among a lot of people. Millions even. But they count their user base in billions. They will easily capture enough people for a new platform to be viable.

https://twitter.com/thomaswilburn/status/1453824405444964359?t=9BKCzzdWJFZchZykil676A&s=19

I know I'm gonna start a debate with a bunch of nerds. But let me say why I think Facebook is worried the product will become obsolete. It's more an acknowledgement of what we actually know about social media platforms. theverge.com/2021/10/25/227…

Social media is still relatively new in the scheme of things. 20 years old or so. In that time many platforms have gotten huge and then faded away. MySpace, Tumblr, etc. An incredibly short period when you look what usually happens with big companies.

Money and size is supposed to correlate with longevity for businesses. But social media is different. The users aren't the customers. They are the product. They are the thing that gets bought and sold via advertising. So maintaining the user base is critical to staying relevant.

What we have learned is that there is only one core problem for social media platforms. The relevancy that makes people engage changes with each generation. So how do you change your product enough to capture the next generation? Not one product has succeeded at that. Ever.

Social media platforms have one generation to thrive. Then they die. Because it belongs to that generation. And young people by nature will reject whatever their parents are doing.

It's worth asking why young people matter so much to this equation. Social media platforms have to be addictive. They have to capture a certain user base so thoroughly that it becomes ubiquitous. And it's much easier to hook young people who have the time to build an addiction.

The thing you'll hear a lot from adults is "I really wanna do Tik Tok. It looks fun. But who has time for that?"

That's a real thing. We are still susceptible to new social media addiction. But we're still addicted to the last thing. And then we have other shit to do.

So Facebook can see the reality that young people are not going to be addicted to their platform. They're going to try anyway, because the longer they can draw it out, the more money they make. But they also understand they need to build a new platform asap.

Facebook execs have understood all of pretty well. Long before I did. And they've figured out the fix for longevity. The company is separate from the platform. You have to build a new platform for every generation. A new designer drug for the kiddos.