Comment by jackhuman
3 hours ago
I deleted my facebook. Its the only thing I can do it seems and I advice everyone to do the same. Screw this platform. Facebook’s scams have caused the elders in my family so much pain and me so much stress dealing with it, its not worth it. A monopolistic cancer on society.
Are people still using Facebook in 2026? I sometimes go back to my Facebook account, it is a complete wasteland, my feed is just generic doomscroll material, nothing new from actual people I know. Communities I follow mostly moved to Discord, it is also no longer where events like festivals post their latest news. Facebook looks like it is #1 on paper, but my experience is completely different, it is nothing like it was 10 years ago, in fact, a significant portion of my Facebook feed is "remember 5-10 years ago".
> Are people still using Facebook in 2026?
Some of the best B2C customers are on FB — willing to spend, low expectations, low maintenance.
If you add IG to the mix, it’s even better.
Your typical HNer does not really fall into “ideal customer” profile for most B2C businesses. Our saving grace is our above average income profile. Other than that, on average we are tolerated rather than sought after (imho).
So basically the suckers stayed?
It's become a defacto forum for a lot of local niche stuff like clubs, schools, non profits, and other special interest groups.
In my area there are groups related to a lot of different outdoor activities , and they share information, trip reports, etc. There might be some other forums for that, but they aren't as widely used or frequently updated.
Facebook marketplace has completely taken over the used sales business in my area (Pacific Northwest). Craigslist is dead, offer up is dead, FB marketplace won.
Yes, though it is much reduced.
I might look at my feed* perhaps 2-3 times a week; despite this, there's a good chance only one of my friends has posted anything new. Unfortunately, that particular friend is also a fairly cliché left-of-the-Cuban-Communist-Party (no, seriously) activist and 95% of her posts are "signal boosting" things I, a Brit living in Germany, do not have any connection to, e.g. "Demexit memes" or Bernie Sander's opinions about anything.
Doesn't help that this trillion dollar corporation still can't handle rotation metadata*, so if I see something and I want to share it, even if it's a good fit for my feed, 50% chance the pic looks stupid the moment I've uploaded it, to which I respond "ugh, never mind then" and forget about trying to solve this and don't post it.
* though the messenger app's web view
> Are people still using Facebook in 2026?
I know this is meant as rhetorical snark, but facebook is by far the most popular social network on the planet, so it just sounds silly.
You're right. But there's a generational aspect to this too.
Younger generations won't touch Facebook. It's seen as a platform for "old" people. So Facebook is on a modest decline. (Enter Instagram and Tiktok and all that to fill the void...)
It doesn't sound silly and Facebook is definitely not as relevant as it was 10 years ago.
I purposely don't use mine. They keep shadow profiles on you, if you're in IL you can sue them (there already was a lawsuit about it) and get some money from them.
Unfortunately this monopolistic cancer has become the only way for businesses to get to their customers.
I completely agree. I did this many years ago. The only thing that annoys me is that for many local things it’s the only option. I’m actually significantly less informed and involved in the local community because things are so heavily reliant on Facebook, and I refuse to sign back up.
I left Facebook over a decade ago, and it was painful to realize how many people simply forgot that I exist, and how many events I missed because many people exclusively use it to invite people.
Similar experience where I met someone in 2017 and was enraptured with them, and we eventually drifted apart because they only communicated through Snapchat and Instagram.
I often wonder if abstaining from the platforms that I dislike was worth the increase in loneliness and detachment from society, but I don't have access to the alternative universe where I decided to grit my teeth and accept the data hoarding companies and dark patterns as a tradeoff for being able to interact with people who couldn't care less about the technicalities.
I think, if someone refuses to interact with you unless it's over their preferred corporate advertising-delivery platform, then they really aren't your friend. Real friends are willing to put in effort and at least agree on a least common denominator communication channel!
My friends know I am not on Facebook. If they really want me to invite me to an event, they know how to reach me, and they do. Anything being communicated out only on Facebook, I just don't go to, and I probably wouldn't want to go to it anyway.
I've been off of Facebook for so long, I don't even remember when I quit. At least 10 years ago, probably 15. And I never joined Instagram, TikTok, or any of these other ad-delivery platforms. I don't feel that I am any more lonely or more detached from society because of it.
it is how it is, but nothing's stopping any of us from reaching out or calling a friend or sending a calendar invite. I used Facebook for a local animal shelter I was volunteering at, but from the infinite scroll filled with infinite ads, very little local things in the middle using "FB Purity" firefox addon to hide all the garbage you see how much garbage is actually there. it feels like I pulled away from a dark matrix of things designed to keep us hooked, then I look around and see everybody else hooked, commenting with bots, sharing facebook encouraging memes/new age spirituality posts and fb doing all it could to hook everybody's attention, getting riled up against political opinions, bots.
is the loneliness worth it? probably not. is the freedom? yes.
> where I decided to grit my teeth and accept the data hoarding companies and dark patterns as a tradeoff for being able to interact with people who couldn't care less about the technicalities.
I know, right? that infinite scroll/showing all the good things on the timelines isn't their real life, they're filling a void within themselves surfing short videos and voicing opinions on nearly everything.
even Zuckerberg said Facebook isn't for making/interacting with friends anymore, it's other things, and not good things.
you're not alone, and you're not detached from society, you're just unplugged from the matrix. of course I say this while browsing subreddits and hn, but hobbies and activities where we meet people, these are always going to be the best thing available to us. in the digital world there's plenty of people who'd be down for a LAN, a hangout, an event like going hiking, and I've met some cool people outside of social media but there's many days where it was me, 4 walls, a book/finding things to occupy my time.
trust me you did yourself a solid.
What's fun is how many things they lock behind a "fuck you, sign in to read this" popup (and now Instagram too)
This from the same company that conveniently tends to reset privacy settings on posts
(It ought to be possible to access info as a non-user, but you can't, so they force you to sign up)