880: With a Decline in Daily Users, Is Facebook Having Its 'MySpace' Moment?

<div>Since its inception in 2004, Facebook's vision of growing its user base has been going steady, despite all the scandals, backlash, US Senate hearings, and regulatory pressure.<br> <br> </div> <div>But on 3 February, Meta – what the company is now known as – reported a half a million decline globally in its daily user base, a first in the social media giant's 18-year history.<br> <br> </div> <div>You may think that a half a million drop is negligible when compared to Meta's existing user base, but it nevertheless wreaked havoc in the stock market, with investors fleeing after taking a peek at Meta's quarterly earnings report.<br> <br> </div> <div>The dip in users, combined with the earnings report, plunged Meta's stock by nearly 26 percent, instantly<a href="https://www.thequint.com/tech-and-auto/tech-news/meta-erases-230-billion-value-biggest-one-day-wipeout-in-history"> shaving $250 billion dollars off its market value and $29 billion off Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth.<br> </a><br> And if you can't compute this fall, imagine the fall of two IBMs, two General Electrics, or McDonald's! This was the single largest one-day dollar drop for a US company in history!<br> <br> </div> <div>Meta listed out <a href="https://www.thequint.com/tech-and-auto/tech-news/stock-crashes-earnings-dip-explained-what-went-wrong-for-meta-facebook-zuckerberg">several reasons for the drop - from Apple's new privacy rules to the increase in competition from TikTok.</a> But the fundamental questions that I will try to address in today's episode are: Is Facebook having its 'MySpace' moment? Has it reached its peak? What led to this fall?<br> <br> </div> <div>To help me unpack this, I speak to Udbhav Tiwari, a policy advisor at Mozilla. Tune in!<br> <br> <br> <strong>Host and Producer: </strong>Himmat Shaligram</div> <div> <strong>Editor:</strong> Shorbori Purkayastha, Nitish Rampal</div> <div><br> </div> <div><br> </div> <div> <strong>Music:</strong> Big Bang Fuzz</div> <div><br> </div> <div><strong>Listen to The Big Story podcast on