Riding Against Tides: Why Facebook May Survive

Facebook is seen by many younger users as an aging and increasingly irrelevant social media platform. But Facebook says that a new milestone shows that it in fact “not dead nor dying”.

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Facebook Reaches 2 Billion Daily Active Users

Facebook announced in aMeta Newsroom post that the platform had reached its highest number of daily active users ever: 2 billion.

In the post, Facebook Head Tom Alison said:

“Contrary to reports otherwise, Facebook is not dead nor dying, but in fact alive and thriving with 2 billion daily active users.”

This doesn’t mean, however, that Facebook plans to stay on the exact same course. Alison also noted various ways the platform will change in the future.

How Facebook Is Evolving

Rather than connecting with family and friends, Facebook says that more users come to the platform to be entertained. As a result, the company is investing more in AI-powered discovery on Facebook.

Alison notes:

“We believe our combination of simple-to-use formats, easy access to your most important audiences and world-class AI that can deliver content to the people who will appreciate it the most—will make Facebook the best place for social discovery and sharing.”

This AI-powered discovery is especially important for Reels. Despite many users calling for Meta to “make Instagram Instagram again “, it looks like Reels will continue to be a major feature on both Facebook and Instagram.

According to Alison, there are more than 140 billion Reels views across Facebook and Instagram each day.

In addition to planned improvements to AI discovery, Facebook says it will make it easier to find creators whose content you’ll enjoy. It also plans to roll out more enhancements to its short-form video tools.

Finally, Facebook also plans to integrate messaging into more parts of the platform. Part of this will include reintroducing the ability to access your Messenger DMs from within the Facebook app.

Facebook Isn’t Dead, Rather It’s Evolving

Despite the popular view that Facebook is on its way out, the platform seems to be achieving growth despite this perception. So expect the company to lean into content recommendations and surfacing Reels more, not less.