Will Facebook Ultimately Take the Consumer Market From Zoom?
I think that you make a good point, Paul, that Facebook is in a good position to usurp consumer users from Zoom. From a business alignment perspective, though, I am skeptical that it will do much damage to Zoom’s target user base for three key reasons.
My primary argument against Facebook is that those low-value users are already familiar with Zoom’s interface and features will naturally stick with what they already know. If there is no significant reason to change (such as Zoom adding more restrictions to participants), inertia will breed user retention. Even if Zoom were to see user attrition, they will like go somewhere with a more mature interface that does not require ecosystem attachment.
That brings me to my second argument. Facebook’s business model, much like Microsoft, favors ecosystem exclusivity over broad inclusion. While I have not dug into Messenger Rooms yet, I expect it to have similar constraints to other Facebook capabilities. To use it, everyone will need to have a Facebook account and all of the overhead that comes from it. An argument could be made that most folks will already have a Facebook account, but since one of the primary areas of Zoom usage growth has been to support distance learning, I doubt that parents would be thrilled for their children to have accounts. It will be interesting to track how that factor evolves over time.
Finally, Facebook has a similar problem to Google in that it has multiple communications platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram, that divide its user base and dilutes the opportunity for significant new features to succeed. I suspect that Facebook is acting more opportunistically with Messenger Rooms than strategically, though I could envision the entry succeeding with folks already tied to its primary ecosystem.
It will be interesting to see how the market battle plays out.
