Peter Garnry
Chief Investment Strategist
Summary: The young abandon Facebook's platforms in protest against their mining of personal information for profit; the attempt by Facebook parent Meta to reel them back in with the Metaverse stumbles.
Back in 2012, 94 percent of teens had a Facebook account, while surveys suggest that today only 27 percent of adolescents have an account. Facebook has gone from being a vibrant hub of young people, to a platform for older “boomers” as young people would say. Young people are increasingly turned off by Facebook’s algorithms turning their social media experiences into that of homogenous feedback loops of identical content, or even worse, hateful and disinforming content. Facebook’s own research suggests that teens spend two to three times longer on TikTok than on Instagram (which is Facebook’s youngest social media asset), and that Snapchat is the preferred way to communicate with friends.
In many ways, Facebook is suddenly in the midst of a cultural war between young people under 40 and those over 40, with young people seeing Facebook representing the evil boomer generation of fake news and greedy corporations. Facebook’s predicamentis a bit like the only meaningful cigarette brand in the market and before you know it, several new brands are joining the marketplace. These newcomers are cooler and have a different take on data privacy and how information is controlled, without being minted in algorithms that serve highly individualised advertisement messages.
A new company name (Facebook is now called Meta) and brand identity to separate and shield Instagram (its current most valuable asset), together with creating a new product tailored towards young people, is the exact same playbook tobacco companies have used for years. But in 2022, investors will realise that Meta is rapidly losing the young generation and thus the future potential and profitability of the company. In a desperate move, Meta tries to acquire Snapchat or TikTok alongside throwing billions of dollars into building the creepy Metaverse, which is aimed at surveilling users more directly than ever before and getting young people back into Meta’s universe of social media platforms, with the perceived wisdom that first-mover advantage is always a good thing in technology.
However,the plan struggles to take off as the young generation fails to sign up.
Market impact: Facebook parent company Meta struggles, with shares slumping up to 30 percent versus the broader market, and is urged to spin off its components as separate entities, shattering Zuckerberg’s monopolistic dreams.
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