> There are 3 billion users of FB/WhatsApp/Instagram combined

Is there tho? I have Facebook account but don't use it in any meaningful way. I'm certainly not feeding it any new data. I'm curious to know what percentage of that 3 billion are zombie accounts like mine.

▲

cillianpower 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There almost certainly is. I think on HN people aren’t really aware that they don’t represent the median internet user super well. I would wager if you were to tally every late millennial and zoomer across the west, Instagram usage would probably be near 90%. Facebook usage among older people is also still absolutely rampant, at least anecdotally. Not to mention WhatsApp usage which is huge everywhere but the US seemingly

▲

ipaddr 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The population of the west who fit into zoomer near millennials wouldn't even be close to 500m. Maybe if we add threads bots we could get closer. Most of the accounts are bots/fake/not used anymore.

90% of zoomers don't have an account, most rarely use it and don't add more than a few photos for social proof.

	▲	wenc 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> The population of the west who fit into zoomer near millennials wouldn't even be close to 500m. There are many people of all ages not in the west from very populous nations who use Insta, FB and WhatsApp. I’ve learned that US usage patterns are not representative of rest of world. More saliently, HN users’ conception of others’ usage patterns are absolutely not representative.

▲

CuriouslyC 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Instagram seems like their most engaged property. FB seems to be devolving into groups + marketplace, and WhatsApp gets a lot of play but I don't think it's the best ad serving/bot surface. I don't think Insta alone can carry the company long term, and while I can see group moderation bots, marketplace agents and insta content assistants being popular, I don't think Meta has an entre into running people's lives the way Google does.

▲

crisdias 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This. The metric is "monthly active users" but people prefer that other metric "I don't use it, I don't seen anyone using it in front of me, so nobody uses it".

▲

dr_ 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For anyone who has school age kids, WhatsApp usage is pretty huge in the US as well.

▲

bertmuir 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'll take that wager! Before you look at any real statistics, how does $1000 sound?

▲

alexpotato 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I placed an ad on Facebook as an experiment just to see what the conversion rate would be.

It's for real estate so you can't select age ranges.

The view count grouped by age (highest views to lowest) was:

- 65 to 75

- 55 to 65

- 45 to 55

And almost all women.

In other words, there are a LOT of older women on FB.

▲

runjake 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Who knows for sure, but Meta's own financial disclosures[1] report over 3.6 billion "Family Daily Actice People (DAP), which represents the de-duplicated number of people who log into at least one of Meta's core properties (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or WhatsApp) daily.

At even 1% of that figure, that's a heck of a lot of people.

1. https://investor.atmeta.com/investor-news/press-release-deta...

▲

hbn 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Outside of US/Canada and a handful of countries with their own chat apps like China, WhatsApp is like... THE global method of internet communication.

▲

walthamstow 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

India is 1bn-something people and they're pretty much all on WhatsApp

▲

1123581321 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes, of course. Wikipedia has a quick summary of the most popular networks ranked by monthly active users. Facebook is #1 and Meta owns three of the top five. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_social_pl...

▲

smokel 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Those are self-reported numbers from 2023. Besides most likely being highly inflated, I think Facebook is on the decline.

	▲	Scoring6931 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well, perhaps. But to the same extent that all the other social networks' usage numbers would also be highly inflated.

▲

stronglikedan 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Is there tho?

Yes.

> I'm curious to know what percentage

A fraction of one.

Same with most topics that HN considers sensitive, such as privacy concerns. >99% of people just don't give a shit.

▲

missedthecue 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Almost everyone in south asia, Latam, and Africa with a smartphone uses whatsapp daily. I mean the penetration rate is actually crazy. In my latam country 92% of internet users are whatsapp users. In india, the figure is 97%.

So how many billions is that before throwing in IG and FB?

▲

dbbk 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes

▲

badc0ffee 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

FB Marketplace is great.

▲

dashundchen 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I actually despise Marketplace compared to the Craigslist days. Unfortunately it seems to be where everyone moved.

Craigslist had no accounts or login wall. Postings were chronological with a map. Simple email for communication rather than FB messenger.

	▲	badc0ffee 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I should clarify that what I mean is that it's very useful for buying and selling. Where I live, at least, it's more active than Kijiji or Craigslist ever were.

▲

oblio 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You're probably a techie so statistically an anomaly.

Also WhatsApp is absolutely huge around the world and wherever I go it doesn't seem like it's slowing down.

▲

afavour 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I’m sure there is a percentage of accounts that are zombie but there’s no doubt that Meta has an absolute shit-ton of daily users. All else aside, in most countries outside the US WhatsApp is the primary messaging medium.