Facebook reports first drop in user activity in 18 years, with Meta shares falling

Meta shares plummeted $ 20 billion, the equivalent of $ 200 billion, after Facebook reported a decline in active users for the first time since its inception.

Already, it is noticeable to everyone that the Facebook network has become a stagnant environment, frequented by about the same users who discovered it many years ago and who have less and less to do on the platform other than consulting the feed content increasingly populated with ads, page suggestions, and self-suggested posts by the platform’s algorithms, news distributed by the pages we’ve subscribed to over time, and only occasionally, pictures and messages shared by people on your friends list, become equally lethargic. But by far the most worrying thing for Facebook administrators and investors who are already in a hurry to get rid of Meta shares, while the price is still high enough, is that young people who could cover the gap left by users leaving the platform either voluntarily, or due to natural causes, they are not at all interested in the ecosystem designed at the beginning of the 21st century.

Although the decline is marginal, from 1.30 trillion users in the third quarter of 2021 to 1.929 billion active users in the fourth quarter, the precedent has already been set and is likely to remain credible as the all-time high of the social networking platform. it has only changed the online landscape, but it has contributed decisively to the fall of governments and the change of destiny for millions, or even billions of people. Whether this is the case immediately, or a little later, most voices are converging on the idea that Facebook has already reached its full potential, with the decline now inevitable and likely faster than users would still expect. socialization.

Anticipating the moment, Mark Zuckerberg initiated last year the separation of his company’s identity from that of Facebook. With a special name chosen to avoid any resonance with the old Facebook identity, Meta set out with huge funds ready to invest in the development of a new platform at least as visionary, intending nothing more and nothing less than to captivate a number as largest of the planet’s inhabitants in an alternate universe, in which virtual reality and the world in which we all live come to be confused.

Called Metavers, the new universe designed by Mark Zuckerberg aims to further incorporate modern technology into everyday life, replacing the mundane smartphone that you impulsively check every few minutes with augmented reality accessories that, ideally for Meta , you will need as much as wearing glasses, not only to see where you are going, but to function in an increasingly connected and technology-oriented world.

For this purpose, Meta has invested $ 10.2 billion in 2021 and $ 6.6 billion in 2020, just to develop the technologies and devices that will lay the groundwork for this new “universe.” For now, without concrete results, CEO Mark Zuckerberg warns in advance that the investment in this field is a long-term one, which will not be profitable in the near future.