Expert Says Facebook is Now Like a Zombie, Here's Why
The emergence of Facebook 20 years ago was a pivotal moment for the internet world. The social media platform introduced a new way for individuals to connect and communicate.
Facebook was first launched by its founder Mark Zuckerberg for Harvard students in 2004. It was gradually expanded to students at other campuses and released to the public in 2006.
Since then, Facebook’s journey has been relatively smooth. For instance, it conducted an IPO in 2012 and acquired two new social media stars, Instagram and WhatsApp.
That rapid development transformed the company into one of the world’s social media giants.
However, as time has passed, Facebook has begun to be abandoned with development efforts in different directions, such as attempting to enter the metaverse and splurging on AI.
Julia Angwin, an investigative journalist at The New York Times, believes that consumers are starting to become dissatisfied with Meta, the new name for Facebook since 2021. Ultimately, this has become one of the reasons for the company’s revenue showing pressure.
“Meta’s revenue is starting to show pressure due to rising consumer dissatisfaction and the company’s lavish spending over the years,” she explained, quoted from Futurism on Tuesday (12/5/2026).
She even compares Facebook’s condition to the demise of Yahoo and AOL, which were once internet stars in the past. Although the companies and users still exist, many teenagers now do not want accounts on either platform.
“As young people say, they are very embarrassing. Many teenagers do not want to have an AOL account, a Yahoo email address, or a Facebook profile,” she continued. “And the plummeting stock price confirms what we have long believed in our hearts: This is a company entering the zombie era,” she wrote.
Meta is known to be continuously striving in technology development. After the failed VR, the company is now trying its luck with AI.
Meta’s focus on AI is not surprising. This is because Zuckerberg has been pushing his company to compete more aggressively in generative AI over the past year.
One of them is seeking the best people in the AI field to join Meta. Zuckerberg offered massive salary packages of hundreds of millions of dollars over four years to join the company’s superintelligence team.
Meta has also prepared funds for AI development. For example, US$600 billion (Rp 10 quadrillion) to build data centres by 2028, and US$2 billion (Rp 33.9 trillion) to acquire the Chinese AI startup Manus.