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The most spectacular stock market rally to date lasted exactly 24 hours and began with the simple words Elon Musk on Twitter: "Use Signal".
The Tesla boss actually wanted to recommend the “Signal” chat app, an alternative to the top dog WhatsApp, which is considered secure and privacy-conscious.
Instead, numerous Internet users followed Musk like a seer and bought shares in response to his tweet - unfortunately the wrong ones.
The course of the medical technology company "Signal Advance" from a small town in the south of the USA shot up by 930 percent, only to crash again within hours.
Signal, on the other hand, i.e. the messenger service, is not even listed on the stock exchange.
The fact that Musk even recommended the Signal app was because the Facebook group is under heavy pressure this year.
New data protection rules are currently being introduced for the WhatsApp chat service, which could annoy users.
US President Donald Trump was also banned from Facebook and Instagram after the storm on the Capitol.
Too late, some complained - out of actionism, others criticized.
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One thing is certain: since then, the competition has been booming.
The signal app promoted by Musk was downloaded more than 1.3 million times a day at its peak.
More than 25 million people are said to have registered on the Telegram platform within three days.
The world is looking for alternatives to the services of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg - no matter where.
For the tech giant, that's just the latest problem: authorities have been trying to break the company's dictates for months.
Gone are the days when the Group's services were continuously supplied by users.
In the future, Zuckerberg will have to fight for customers - because the market power of the group is at stake.
Zuckerberg: At odds with users - and Apple
Data protection threatens to become the Group's Achilles heel worldwide.
This was shown by the new WhatsApp terms of use.
All over the world, with the exception of Europe, the group has its users granting the right to use WhatsApp data in the Facebook advertising network with a click.
Those who do not agree can soon post their messages elsewhere.
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The change was planned for February 8th.
Facebook had already used the tactic of being granted extensive rights via quick queries.
But this time the users protested.
The group is currently trying to limit the damage and has announced that it will only introduce the new directive in three months, so that users can adapt to the rules "at their own pace".
“We expect headwinds in 2021,” said Facebook CFO Dave Wehner in the fall - among other things, “through developing regulation”.
The first weeks of the new year are over, the headwind is there.
And he's getting stronger.
Because Zuckerberg is not only at odds with its users, also with its Silicon Valley neighbor Apple.
In the future, the cell phone manufacturer wants to use warnings to explain to users how Facebook uses personal data.
If the users do not agree to the data collection, they can still use Facebook - at least that's what Apple says.
A contradiction by the users would be costly for Facebook: iPhone owners are considered the most lucrative advertising targets, Zuckerberg would miss billions in revenue.
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The company boss could use the money well, for example for the proceedings that authorities are fighting against Zuckerberg around the world.
In Germany, for example, the cartel office is taking action against Facebook.
The argument of the competition watchdog: The users give Facebook their data so readily because they have no alternative.
Cartel Office vs. Facebook: Good cards to limit data usage
Justus Haucap, competition economist at the University of Düsseldorf, says the Bundestag has only just passed new competition laws: “It should only be a matter of time before Facebook, according to the new Paragraph 19a of the Act against Restraints of Competition, becomes a platform with paramount cross-market importance for competition is declared. ”The cartel office can then prohibit Facebook from combining data from different services in order to expand its power, for example in advertising on the Internet.
Jürgen Kühling, head of the Federal Monopoly Commission, sees it similarly: “If my 'friends' are on Facebook, it doesn't help me that I can also use Telegram, as the services are not interoperable.
The same applies to WhatsApp, where it doesn't help me that there is a more privacy-friendly signal as long as my family and friends are not there. "
He therefore thinks: that Facebook dominates the market by definition is currently plausible.
Both experts expect the cartel office to have good cards in the dispute with Facebook to further restrict the group's data usage, at least in Germany.
Then the new rules could become a model for Europe.
The procedure in Germany is no longer an isolated case: In December, Australian regulators sued the group for its data collection mania.
They were based on a lawsuit by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
In Facebook's home market, it is also pushing a procedure for abuse of market power.
In the medium term, this could even mean that Facebook will have to give up the WhatsApp messaging service again.
This creates an explosive mixture for Facebook.
Because at the same time the growth of the group is slowing down, as the share price shows: Since September, the paper has collapsed by almost 20 percent.
In the Corona crisis, the number of users shot up.
The analysis company eMarketer (which, like WELT AM SONNTAG, belongs to the media company Axel Springer) expects the numbers to only increase by two percent per year by 2024 at the latest.
Facebook even lost users in four countries this year.
In Germany, the number of users fell by 0.3 percent.
This is also due to the fact that Zuckerberg lacks the next generation.
Facebook woos SMEs - with a clear goal
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Where does the optimism come from?
The group has long been planning to convert its various apps into mobile shopping platforms.
Since May, retailers have been able to open so-called digital stores on Facebook and especially on Instagram.
At the start of the new role, Zuckerberg courted smaller companies in particular.
The dealers, who had to close their shops temporarily because of Corona, can now advertise their things directly to users and sell them via the app - without their own homepage.
In Germany, Facebook says it has "already been allowed to support 38,000 small and medium-sized companies with digitization".
Together with the World Bank and the OECD, Facebook has been asking such companies around the world about their crisis experiences since May 2020.
The purpose of such studies is clear: Facebook wants to show how happy companies are on the platform, explains itself: "58 percent of SMEs on Facebook are optimistic about the future of their company."
The motto: Facebook helps in the crisis.
But this should by no means be selfless, because the group benefits twice from it: Dealers place a lot of advertising and users are tempted to linger even more in the Facebook universe.
What works with Instagram, Facebook is increasingly trying to do with WhatsApp.
Since December it has been possible to look at products in retailers' chats and order them directly there.
With the new business models, the group is also changing the character of its platforms.
Instagram is no longer the app used to share vacation photos with friends.
The snapshots were replaced by retouched influencer images, which are now giving way to direct sales.
WhatsApp could fare similarly.
The balance between the digital shopping mile and private communication is difficult to keep.
If it tips over, users stay away or migrate, which in turn is crucial for the success of e-commerce.
Young users are attracted to the competitor TikTok: According to eMarketer data, the number of users in the USA rose by over 85 percent in the previous year, and by almost 80 percent in Germany.
The analysis service App Annie concludes that social media users spent more time on TikTok than any other portal for the first time: In Germany it was 19.4 hours per month - but only 11.5 hours on Facebook.
This year, TikTok is expected to reach over 1.2 billion active users.
Signal, Threema and Co .: Don't overestimate hype
"The reach of apps also arises from natural regrowth and peer pressure," says Benjamin Krämer, media scientist from the LMU in Munich.
"Especially for Facebook Messenger, I no longer see such regrowth entirely guaranteed," he explains, but also says: "WhatsApp is still firmly in the saddle for the time being and Instagram is widely anchored in younger to middle age groups."
But for the time being, Facebook still has one big advantage: its market power.
Many users have made themselves comfortable in the Zuckerberg cosmos.
"Nobody likes to use 20 apps at the same time and remember the slightly different functionality," says Krämer.
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But at least, he believes, the market will remain in motion: Independent apps could grow as an alternative to Facebook services and lose the major services in groups that are critical of the company or groups that are sensitive to data protection.
However, one should not overestimate the hype surrounding Signal, Threema and Co., he says: "The general public is likely to stick with their usual apps or is only slowly migrating."
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Source: WELT AM SONNTAG