Comment by rsynnott
5 days ago
I'm a bit surprised usage was ever that high; that would imply that almost 10% of the population was using _Facebook Marketplace_!
I think I've looked at it maybe twice since it launched, to admire all the weird scams. Maybe it's gotten better since? It used to be sub-ebay levels of complete nonsense.
Remember that you're probably in a bubble. Marketplace was incredibly popular back in the days when I was at FB, and I'd have expected it to get more popular based on the people I see around me (kids stuff is all over it).
Maybe the gatekeeper thing is a reflection of less people in the EU using FB at all, rather than specifically Marketplace.
That bubble is the EU, which this law is about. I know a bunch of European countries have their own Ebay/Craigslist websites. Marketplace has never been even somewhat popular in my country.
Yeah fair. I guess I forget that Ireland is now the largest English speaking country in the EU, so I guess I'm in a bubble. I am still really surprised that Marketplace is no longer big enough to count as a gatekeeper.
Facebook Marketplace is extremely popular depending on the city you’re in.
It has taken the place of Craigslist for younger generations.
What surprises me is how much people on this site underestimate facebook.
Facebook literally is the internet for millions of people.
Facebook marketplace is far larger than craigslist and ebay combined, even if you take both of those at their respective peaks.
The open web might seem huge, but it's actually dwarfed in size by Facebook.
> What surprises me is how much people on this site underestimate facebook.
It’s the classic disconnect between engineering and product management: When engineers don’t want a product and therefore conclude that nobody wants the product.
When I’ve brought up Facebook active user stats here in the past I got flooded with responses suggested Facebook was lying or manipulating their user counts to pump up the stock.
Yeah, I often see claims online that Facebook is dead, Facebook is just Boomers posting pictures of their grandkids, etc. Maybe it's a regional thing, because where I live, everyone's on Facebook. Most small businesses, organizations, and communities here use it as their primary (or only) online presence for promoting themselves and staying in contact with their customers/members. Marketplace has completely replaced the old newspaper classified ads. That's unfortunate since the search in Marketplace sucks, but it's happened.
My family uses its messenger for organizing things because everyone has it, even if some of us rarely use it except for that. If I wanted to draw attention to something locally, whether it was promoting a service or running for office, I'd be a fool not to use Facebook.
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*US city. I think people in my country would be able to name Craigslist (not in use) over fb marketplace.