Exclusivity used to be Facebook's greatest strength. You could post photos of yourself getting drunk in the dorms without worrying that your parents would find out. Now that Facebook has gone mainstream, a competitor could attack Facebook by offering privacy within well-defined real-world communities, authenticating membership by email address, IP address or moderator approval.

If you want to answer this question, it's probably a mistake to look at Facebook itself. The biggest danger to successful technology companies is that the world will change in a way that makes them irrelevant. The new thing, whatever it is, will initially seem unimportant. By the time the incumbent realizes how important it is, it will be too late.

This sort of generic answer is not very exciting. It would be more exciting if you could say what the new thing would be. (To some people at least; to most it would seem a toy.) But that is quite hard to do.

Eventually, complacency and failure to innovate will probably kill off Facebook. I know it's hard to look at Facebook now and see the possibility that they will be much less relevant in 10 years. But that will probably happen.

Prodigy, CompuServe, AmericaOnline, Friendster, Myspace and to a certain extent even Yahoo and Microsoft. At one point in time they were all pervasive, disruptive, and dominant. And now they've either gone or are having to pivot into a niche to maintain viability at a fraction of their former glory.

The internet and technology will keep growing. Facebook will get marginalized at some point.

Related from last week, my own Ask HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1580464

One of the comments in that thread pointed to this presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-networ...

Which points out that the current Facebook does not match the needs of real social networking (ie. multiple networks, different levels of trust, etc.). These things are hard to implement, but I feel that whoever does get it right (along with a killer feature to get users, such as what Photos was for Facebook) will be a winner.

The other feedback that I have from average Facebook users is concern for privacy (ie. a prospective employer finding your party pics), inability to control access easily (ie. your grand parents seeing your photos from a party), an overflow of information and the feeling of a 'fad' wearing out.

Here is the downfall of FB.

1. FB will go public in the next 5 years. 2. 5 years after that it will become filled with old people. 3. There will be a reemergence of social networking startups trying to displace the then bloated solution with a more elegant alternative. 4. One of these will win and become the next FB. 5. Repeat.

Just like a better search engine can't kill Google anymore, a better social networking site / solution won't kill Facebook. Open protocols won't kill it. A shiny new more exclusive social networking site won't kill it.

It can only die if:

i. Government intervenes with some crazy law.

ii. An entrepreneur somewhere thinks of a better idea for people to spend time on - instead of on social networking and quiz taking and game playing online. (Hmm... Maybe something like Hunch - but a lot more user friendly and socially interactive (an updates stream).)

iii. Facebook does something crazy and self destructive.

Orkut in Brazil used to be just as impossible to displace as FB, and it's in the process of being displaced. So it can be done. Come to think of it, the same happened to ICQ over MSN, and in fact the very very old out there might see Usenet over BB in the same light.

So, 1: it can happen.

But also, 2: it will not happen over a feature list. A friend once said to me that MSN displaced ICQ because all the dumb hot girls didn't grok ICQ. As awful as the idea is, i think there is something to it. Something like street-cred.

Which obviously comes from who and not what. I think the official term is "cluster effects". But then again, cluster effects only require that YOUR friends be there, not that everyone is. Which is to say: it's not about universality, but traction --- similar, not the same.

Finally, 3: should it? Why must FB fall? It is a walled garden, and it is stifling of competition, for sure. But the thing about walled gardens is that while obviously flawed from the collective perspective, from the individual perspective they are, well, gardens. As in pleasant.

I guess anything that "competes" with FB is as bad as, the "good side of the force" is not killing FB, but creating reasonable ways to mine it's data, like open protocols. Those will come, sooner or later, just like twitter and FB kinda interoperate, but they will not kill it, maybe at best make it less relevant.

I think it's been mentioned before that standardization of social networking protocols might work, to the point that they become part of the Internet itself, like e-mail. I think it is only a matter of time (2-3 years) before the majority of Internet users will simply use distributed systems where their social data will be spread over several services (proprietary or open source), and the sharing of that data will follow a standard protocol (maybe a future blend of ActivityStea.ms, Salmon, and others).

Facebook will survive, most likely, but I think its influence will slowly wane to the point where they will be just another "media company" like AOL and Yahoo.

The only thing that can kill facebook is failure to innovate and evolve with the tastes of its users. This would open the door to a competitor to become the new 'cool place to be'. It will probably take 5-10 years to find out if this is going to happen. The internal 'move fast, break stuff' development model seems explicitly designed to prevent this.

Barring that (or some sustained operational mishap -- downtime, security breach, etc.), network effects make it unkillable.

Here's one I haven't seen mentioned: social network fatigue. People gradually realize that online friendships tend to be shallow, unfulfilling & transitory. They switch back to the old model where being somebody's friend actually takes some effort, and has tangible emotional and social benefits associated with it. FB becomes irrelevant. Cf. that Wilson Quarterly article that was on here a couple days ago.

Hey... anything is possible :-)

Facebook will "die" when it is no longer unique. They have defined the template for how all future websites need to operate. And I guarantee within a few years developers will find ways to standardize (or at least ubiquitize) every important feature of Facebook.

Once every website has a universal login, contacts, and sharing features, then why would I use Facebook, when I can use X, Y, or Z which have lots of other features too? And then the cycle will start over again.

Innovator's dilemma + architectural conservatism + internal turf-war politics. As Facebook grows and the third-party innovators in their ecosystem become larger and more formidable, antibodies to innovation will be developed (higher barrier for new ideas to be attracted to the platform from the outside, higher barriers for new ideas to emerge and take root from the inside).

This won't kill Facebook it will just make it less relevant as a way of attracting innovator mindshare and new capital. As with Microsoft, this may take a decade or more to play out, and like Microsoft, by most measures (other than stock price) they'll still be considered a fairly successful business as this happens. Just one no longer growing insanely or having new Hollywood movies made about it.

What takes the mindshare? I don't know. Perhaps the marriage of consumer electronics and a collection of narrowly focused and ubiquitous services seems more likely to come together and be integrated into people lives than does belief that a walled garden "portal" conquering the world will continue.

Or possibly: social congregation around digital media. The return of the shared experience around the TV.

It seems as if High School students are getting bored with Facebook as a whole, and it's becoming less trendy as their parents and grandparents join. If someone could come up with a site that would be more engaging somehow while retaining the exclusivity of the early-ish stages of Facebook, I believe they could potentially do very well.

It doesn't seem too likely, but there could be an increase in privacy awareness in the common population.

Or it could become fashionable to do stuff in the real world again.

It might become like TV - mass entertainment, but not really exciting anymore.

Honestly, whenever I log into Facebook, I feel at a loss as to what to do. I just tried playing a game, and it asks for all my information including friends list, before I even know what it is all about. Uh, I just want to play a game... That kind of thing might start it's demise.

I suspect at the moment there is a lot of pushing and nagging to keep users active ("do you want to send a purple cow to your friends"?). Eventually people might just tire of being manipulated.

Even if not, and it remains the biggest thing on the net, there might still be a significant number of people who want something else.

Lack of revenue. It's killed more social networks than competition ever has.

I still think (or hope) that something that better reflects a person's multiple networks can emerge and gain widespread use. For instance, I don't have all my coworkers on my Facebook friends list because I don't like to mix them in with my personal friends or family. That said, I don't use Facebook's wall all that much already because what I like to share with my family and what I like to share with friends are completely separate as well.

THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH FACEBOOK APPROACHES

BORN TO A STARTUP THAT HAS THRICE DEFIED THEM...

oh, never mind

Here are a few of my solid guesses.

1. A destination site that is closely tied to a mobile hardware device. (Apple, Google and MS have the closest chance with this). +1 if company has TV expansion to get the rest of the population.

2. Implosion. Internal conflict most probably from investors/shareholders vs. leaders.

3. Site-wide security breach that affected more than 30% of users and had serious and press-juicy consequences. The issue should persist for more than a week.

4. Zuckerberg's death or serious illness. (non-issue if a strong leader emerges)

5. Talent migration. This is inevitable as there will be fewer and fewer challenges left to excite sharp minds (3-5 years)

Facebook will either be killed by something fundamentally better - or it will be regulated to death.

Social networking is emerging as far too important a communication medium for one company to be allowed to dominate. It may take a few yeas for regulators to catch up, but if Facebook isn't unseated by something better and more open, it will get broken up by government or at the very least forced to inter-operate openly with its competitors.

I'm betting something better will come around before the government steps in, but either way I'd say Facebook will be taken down a peg or three within the next few years.

Spam and viruses.

Two days ago I awoke to find my status had been changed to "penis" overnight. I have no idea how this happened, since I don't share my account details with anyone or use it on a shared computer. It had an interesting effect on my friends, to say the least. Had it been changed to something worse, an attack like this could easily have led to damage to my social network of friends, which would definitely be grounds for me quitting Facebook.

A few statements related to subject: 1) 500mln have joined FB. Why others didn't? Isn't it because FB has nothing really valuable to offer them?

2) If FB continue trying to become all-internet-in-one-company then they will soon follow Yahoo.

3) Future belongs to specialized social networks utilizing unified social protocols and APIs (not developed yet). LinkedIn is one of early birds. More to come.

A site with a best relation with developers (that was one of the MSFT advantages in the past). Facebook often change APIs specs AND if you exceed their API calling limitation there is not space to buy more "credit" for small companies.

I think the companies embracing the facebook ecosystem and helping them to grow are in risk of future policies changes.

A lot of people doing what I just did last week. I closed my Facebook account because FB is just huge waste of time.

Take advantage of Facebook's negative brand image, and run attack campaigns discussing their history of privacy gaffes. Make sure that alternative service distinguishes itself in nearly every facet and doesn't merely copy Facebook's usability and functionality. No small task, but the correct approach.

Maybe, just maybe something like stackoverflow could be pulled on Facebook. I mean someone who already has gained lots of street cred building a working replacement. Not sure if even that could work. FB is not as universally hated as the site that stackoverflow killed.

Facebook succeeded because it's timing was perfect. It was released right about the time when internet officially went mainstream. Drops in high speed internet prices combined with a crop of Web 2.0 applications promising a more dynamic web caused people to digitize a lot of their lives.

Facebook was able to ride this wave by marketing itself as an exclusive club. It was you and your friends home away from home. It beat out MySpace because of its focus on "networks", allowing entire schools of students to quickly have contact with each other.

I think a Facebook killer is unlikely, unless there is another wave of increased internet activity (which I don't see happening any time soon). However, niche social websites are on the grow and are gaining with popularity. Perhaps if enough of these are created, it'll engulf Facebook in popularity. But then Facebook could simply revert back to its "school" niche that it used to focus on three years ago.

I just made a survey to collect things that people like and dislike about Facebook: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1603643

I'll share the results if I find anything good.

Facebook is Facebook's greatest threat. Consider Myspace: it was largely because they let their product deteriorate that users switched to Facebook.

a new generation of kids.

At this point...only Facebook can kill Facebook.

For reference, see Yahoo.

Google didn't kill Yahoo. Yahoo did.

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too many games like Farmville? (similar to music on myspace?)

Facebook itself

management. that is where the death of something successful is always born.

VPs

The widespread use of ad-blockers could kill Facebook, as ads are their main source of revenue.

Time.

Same discussion here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1465454 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1471695

What can kill Facebook? Burnout. And it will eventually happen.