Does Meta have the “stink of death” about it?

Is Meta treading the path followed by Yahoo, MySpace and even AOL into cultural irrelevance? Julia Angwin thinks so, in a piece from a couple of months ago:

I believe the company — one of the most powerful media organizations in the world and one of the most valuable members of the S&P 500 — is at the start of a long, slow decline that will trigger aftershocks to our economy and our society.

There's much to think about in her piece - but also some things to argue with. The lack of mentions of Instagram, a Meta property highly used by people of all generations, is a significant weakness in her argument. Still, this is a fair point:

Death is different on the internet. Lifeless companies like AOL and Yahoo are still technically with us. You can visit their websites. They have customers. They may even be profitable, as they cut staff and monetize their last remnants of traffic. But they are, as the kids say, peak cringe. Many teenagers wouldn’t be caught dead with an AOL account, a Yahoo email address — or a Facebook profile.

When I ask our year one undergraduates who uses Facebook, tow hands going up is a big number these days. Those that do use it, only use it for Facebook Marketplace.

It feels like Meta is slowly losing its position of cultural dominance – and that tends to be a one-way journey.

Meta's pervert glasses

Rather more recently, one of Meta's attempts to move into the mainstream, of tech again seems to be backfiring. Meta Glasses – the hot product for the forward-thinking geek last Christmas – are developing the “ick” factor:

I saw all these comments about if you wear those glasses you're basically a predator or a creep, and I was like, 'oh, maybe it's not a good idea to have those,'" [Will Kujawa, a freelance video producer] told Engadget. But he says he understands why people have concerns. "I didn't really think that through all the way ... there are a lot of times where it's not appropriate to wear cameras on your face. And even though I would have no intention of do[ing] anything creepy with them, it didn't even occur to me [that] other people just assume that automatically."

Futurism is even more direct about it:

The wearables have become so alienating that many people have taken to simply referring to the shades as “pervert glasses.”

For years, Daring Fireball's John Gruber has characterised Facebook as a company with little taste, but I think it runs deeper than that. Its senior leadership are now so disconnected from the average human being, that they have very little understanding of how their products will be received in the world. And, as a result, it's speed running the same curve that Google Glass went through, with their users eventually shunned as “Glassholes”.

Facebook is in no danger of shutting down – but unless something changes at the top of Meta, irrelevance feels like its long-term fate. A “me, too” AI product will not save it. And, frankly, given how toxic it has become, that might be a good thing.