Lifeless companies like AOL and Yahoo are still technically with us. You can visit their websites.... But they are, as the kids say, peak cringe. Many teens wouldn’t be caught dead with an AOL account, a Yahoo email address — or a Facebook profile....
There is a grim satisfaction in watching [Facebook] hoist with its own petard. This is the company that profited from trafficking in lies, that tuned its algorithms to boost hatred and division, that stole our data and used it against us, that created the culture of toxic memes that are now central to our degraded public discourse.... Meta’s properties, which are already riddled with fraud and scams, are likely to get even worse....
Meta may be dying, but rest assured it won’t go gently into that good night. Maybe that could be a good thing. The more users quit, and the more corroded Meta’s apps grow, the faster we can all log off and close this chapter of the social-media revolution forever.
I wonder what is the scope of "this chapter of the social-media revolution"? It must consist of things beyond Meta, because Angwin is saying it might be good to have Meta surviving through a long disgusting decline because that might make users hate those other things that she wants us to hate. If the problem were just Meta, it would be solved most efficiently if Meta were to die suddenly now.
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The plan to replace Zuck with an AI humanoid robot that looks like Zuck is a strange plan and can’t be good for the bottom line. Especially not after wasting billions going after the all-immersive all the time market.
Meta reported exceptionally strong Q1 2026 results on April 29, with revenue surging 33% year-over-year to $56.31 billion—beating estimates and marking its fastest quarterly growth in nearly five years—driven by 19% higher ad impressions and 12% higher average ad prices across its Family of Apps. Operating income rose 30% to $22.87 billion (41% margin), while net income jumped 61% to $26.77 billion (EPS $10.44), aided by an $8.03 billion one-time tax benefit; underlying results still comfortably beat expectations. Family daily active people reached 3.56 billion (+4% YoY, with a minor sequential dip tied to regional disruptions). For the outlook, Meta guided Q2 2026 revenue to $58–61 billion (supporting continued strong double-digit growth).
Heh. I still have an AOL email account, a Yahoo/AT&T account, and FB/Meta. Older sis is still on Juno email. As long as they still work and they don't start charging for the use, we're all good
Sis also posted on her FB feed a cute little cartoon with one character asking. "Is he dead yet?" and the other character as sers "No." Then a third pops up with the F-bomb. I wonder how that git by the FB minders...
yah, they aren't going anywhere unless the Zuzks shut them down. Part of the problem with economic illiteracy is no sense of burn rate, or as Reddington demonstrates, revenue...or earnings...
I reactivated my FB account because a lot of the small businesses around here, it's the only way to look at their business web site, if you need stump grinding, or welding done, but the last time I tried to log on, it demanded a bunch of info instead of just letting me use my PW, so I am done, and now I just ask Grok for the *real* phone number, because a lot of web sites take the business names and put in an intercept number to generate leads that they then sell to a bunch of related businesses.
It's self immolation that FB has done.
"This is the company that profited from trafficking in lies, that tuned its algorithms to boost hatred and division,"
Code words deciphered - Zuckerberg didn't hate Trump enough.
Seems like the purpose of this piece is to try to bring about what she says is happening and the reason is that Facebook/Meta didn't censor enough.
IOW, she's telling us the cool kids all want to be censored hard.
I didn't read the article so I could be wrong. IMHO, the NYT is peak cringe and I wouldn't be caught dead paying to read it.
I've rarely used facebook except to interact with relatives. My daughter uses it only because my wife does. Personally, I've always found it clunky and intrusive.
Xfinity (Comcast) is forcing all users to Yahoo Mail. Does the NYT think Comcast is dead?
The author is formerly from ProPublica; so I suspect this is battlefield prep type fodder. In that, I expect she will have the same level of success as Iran.
i never used AOL. Yahoo got left in the dust by Google because it was stodgy and "establishment". Of course, that was in the 2000s. Im sure, like AOL, its been bought out by some mega-media company. Must have everything controlled by a few people. Like the old days.
As with the majority of NYT content, Angwin inadvertently reveals juvenile-like ignorance and parochialism. Woke-era NYT can't imagine stuff like "market segments" or "niche audiences" or "platform refreshes" or "shifts in preference as people age."
The Althouse blog confirms that even old Blogger has a persistent niche, and it regularly receives outside attention.
Reddington's financial performance data makes me ask whether Angwin has the confidence of her predictions and will short META stock.
Would NYT ethical rules bar such a stock play after writing a story like that?
If you use an off-brand e-mail service like mail.com ('no "g" no "hot" just "mail.com,"' as I had to explain many times), you may think you are striking a blow against monopoly, but the security is likely to be much worse. Trust me on that.
Big comeback for MySpace!
“Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves) officially shut down its search engine and related services on May 1, 2026, ending a 30-year run that began in 1996 as a pioneering natural-language question-and-answer site. The site, known for its butler mascot, was acquired by IAC in 2005 and rebranded to Ask.com in 2006 before its final closure.“
Its remarkable how wrong she is:
Would NYT ethical rules bar such a stock play after writing a story like that?
R Foster Winans, line one...
So that was the reporter bud fox talked to
There’s a name for this kind of piece: Wishcasting.
I think I have an old MySpace account lying around somewhere. I remember I liked it better than Facebook.
Just because Angwin doesn't use it, it does not mean it's dying.
Lots of the old Craigslist advertising, and personal buying and selling, now take place on FB.
Facebook is still growing. I use it to stay in touch with friends and family. Yahoo has arguably the best Fantasy Sports tools and is popular with that crowd. AOL, on the other hand...
AOL email still serves me as an effective spam catcher for non-important logins like fantasy football on ESPN.
FB marketplace is simply easy to use and very useful.
FB for local business is also very useful.
FB for anything else other is irrelevant.
Yahoo News is popular as an aggregator of leftmedia nonsense and a homebase for loony leftist commenters.
For those who may be as clueless as Angwin, Meta’s properties include Facebook for the olds and Instagram for the youngs — and cousin, business is a-boomin.
Instagram has, by most reports, about 500 million daily active users. It is filled with lies and distortions about Trump and Epstein, along with a whole lot of time-wasting crap. I guess all of that is very popular, so I don't see Meta dying.
Meta is evolving. We all do.
It’s hilarious to see left-wingers and right-wingers equally convinced Meta is their evil nemesis because someone on its platforms once expressed an opinion that differs from their own.
There's a solid contingent using Facebook to stay in touch with their friend group and relatives. I get daily notices of postings from people I went to high school with and weekly for the doings of my cousins. Small businesses use it extensively.
Earnest Prole said...
"It’s hilarious to see left-wingers and right-wingers equally convinced Meta is their evil nemesis because someone on its platforms once expressed an opinion that differs from their own."
Do you mean like lamenting that Trump isn't gone?
Facebook is the leading social network in 156 out of 167 countries worldwide, with a significant user base in Asia, where nearly half of all global active users are located. The platform has also seen substantial growth in regions like Latin America and Africa
Do you mean like lamenting that Trump isn't gone?
It’s always amusing when people who love profane, vulgar, straight-talkin truth telling suddenly get all snowflakey.
And to make it perfectly clear, I have nothing against profanity, vulgarity, straight talkin, or truth telling.
Well that was interesting. First I heard FB and Yahoo were dying - I pictured a vast meadow with all the flowers slumped over. Then came "Reddington." The flowers perked up a bit, looking sideways up at the heavens. Would it rain? The commenters I recognize as "real" (unlike "Reddington" who has a deus ex machina feel, not to say a "busy PR worker who deserves well of his boss" feel), anyhow, real commenters kept bringing forth stats that suggested a world more like life as a I know it. [That is, in my world, people use FB to stay in touch and people who are not very interested in tech use AOL or anything else they acquired in the Nineties. "People not very interested in tech" is an enormous group, just try explaining anything when a phone or computer is being weird.] And so, by the end of the comments, in my imagination, all the flowers in the field were looking brightly up again at the shining heavens.
If Meta dies,
I wont dress in black,
Or go to the funeral.
I'm quite immovable.
Death comes to us all,
Even Facebook.
I heard FB and Yahoo were dying - I pictured a vast meadow with all the flowers slumped over.
That’s because the New York Times author neglected to mention Meta’s Instagram, which has been wildly profitable. That’s the kind of thing you do when you’re wishcasting.
But retro is always a thing. It's like a NYC subway train. It's bad only if you are early or late, but there is always another one coming.
While using aol or yahoo websites might be cringe, having an email address ending in @aol.com or better yet @(cityname).rr.com (IYKYK) is an indicator of longevity and loyalty.
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