Facebook was always doomed for failure, just like every social platform that came before it. The pivot should've happened years ago with a focus on Instagram and content creation (their shot at streaming was at least in the right direction).
At this point, Facebook has simply waited entirely too long, and the likelihood of any pivot working for a company of their size is basically nonexistent.
You could also say that "they won" and there's no where to go but down now.
Nothing can grow forever and things that try are known, in the biological domain, as cancers or infestations. There's quite a few corporations that "won" their market, so they're primed for a decline-- if you can still even call it that after enough people made more money than god and retired.
Facebook having such a bad rep across the board of people did not help at all. Like why is FB not doing any major enterprise initiative or cloud computing? Especially now with their stock dropping, having another $100B in value would help a lot.
They haven’t monetized Messenger or WhatsApp much either. Maybe they can’t or it won’t ever be enough. Less than billions in profit won’t help much. Which does make them having won and are now going down seem more correct.
> Like why is FB not doing any major enterprise initiative or cloud computing...
They "sort-of" did. The Open Compute Project (https://www.opencompute.org/) is an effort in which Facebook played a major role. The motivation, for them, is to break free of the shackles put on them by computing and networking equipment vendors (like Cisco). Facebook is big enough that they could design their own stuff, and try to make it a commodity which, as a side-effect, allows others to get involved and benefit from as well. It's hard to say how well this has worked but it was "an initiative".
I feel that social networks are best done in an descentralized way: Like IRC, and Usenet on its own time. There should be no "winner" or local entity that tries to milk profits out of it.
Because exactly as you said: Facebook "won" the social network game several years ago: Everybody was in there. From there the only thing it could do to try to milk more profits was to bring it down.
Instead, we've got IRC or Usenet that, years and years after their "peak", they are still going well and good. Gone are the "ethernal septembers" and most of spam. And the protocol and networks (that matter for the people using it) are still in there.
a) Facebook is not doomed for failure. Their audience just got older and rather than abandon them they acquired companies more suited to younger generations e.g. Instagram, Oculus instead. And it's a strategy that has unquestionably worked.
b) Facebook isn't really pivoting to metaverse any more than Apple is pivoting to services. It's an additional revenue stream alongside their existing ones which are still very healthy and lucrative.
> Their audience just got older and rather than abandon them they acquired companies more suited to younger generations e.g. Instagram, Oculus instead.
This strategy has run it's course. Regulators are keen to weaken FB and will obstruct further acquisitions. Acquisition targets know they can beat FB in the long run and will no longer agree to be purchased.
I'll add to the pile of speculation of "I know why facebook is failing (when it isn't)". To me it's the fact that it became less and less of a useful tool. It used to be this simple thing where you could connect with your friends or people you would meet (perhaps with the intent of dating them). There was a news feed that was sorted by chronological order, and you would mostly see updates and photos posted by people. Creating an event was easy.
Today, nothing is chronological, profiles are (somewhat) public facing, people just posts links, photos has basically moved to instagram, messaging has moved to whatsapp, and events hasn't changed a bit. Plus there's a ton of other new features that dilute the tool.
I think Facebook (the company) have known that Facebook (the social network) was never going to live forever.
The first pivot was into Photos. A mini pivot, but an important one as being a glorified contact list and blog was on the way out.
Then they saw another competitor rising, so they bought it to ride its lifecycle. Instagram.
Then into Messaging, with messenger and WhatsApp. Most people I know use one or both of these and not Facebook.
There have been other smaller pivots to stay relevant overall, even if any one piece of the business is dying, and I think that’s good business practice.
Whether the meta verse turns out to be the next wave or not is essentially their current bet.
It's hard to post to a platform when you know whatever you say that's controversial, or even whatever you say that becomes controversial, will follow you the rest of your life.
Facebook is going down? I don't think they are. They own Instagram which is generating lots of money and then they own WhatsApp which is not even monetized yet. FB might not exist in a decade but Meta isn't going anywhere.
At this point, Facebook has simply waited entirely too long, and the likelihood of any pivot working for a company of their size is basically nonexistent.