Like all trends, does Facebook have an impending expiry date?

EVERY empire hits its limits, and every leader eventually goes too far, Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg can’t be exempt, writes James Morrow.

No trend can last forever, can it? So do we put Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook as a trend that will fizz out, or an empire that will take over the world? (Pic: Paul Marotta/Getty)

THERE is a popular line of thinking which runs something to the effect of, Facebook has in the past decade or so managed to rack up something on the order of one-and-a-bit billion users so it is only a matter of time before the remaining five or six billion of us sign up and Mark Zuckerberg reduces all human activity to a pulsing global network of “likes” and “wows”.

But as disturbing as the thought is even for those of us who use the service more than we should, there are increasing hints that the social network may wind up being less towering behemoth and more house of cards.

Because just as every empire hits its limits, and every leader eventually goes too far, there is no reason to think either Facebook or Zuckerberg are exempt.

Put aside the threats of lawsuits from private companies and the threat of regulations from governments.

Ignore even his all-but-official tilt at the White House (his Instagrams of fried pork sandwiches on an Iowa roadtrip led at least one internet wag to comment that “watching Mark Zuckerberg try to casually sidle into politics is like watching a very drunk person try to shoplift an airconditioner”).

Mark Zuckerberg touring America meeting ordinary people. Here, he’s “visiting small towns in Iowa, and just stopped in Wilton, population 2800”. (Pic: Facebook)

But do take note of Zuckerberg’s recent comments that he wants his service to be something of a virtual pastor, an electronic church providing a spiritual home for its flock.

“If we can do this, it will not only turn around the whole decline in community membership we’ve seen for decades, it will start to strengthen our social fabric and bring the world closer together,” he said, speaking of the increased role he saw for Facebook.

“Think about it. A church doesn’t just come together. It has a pastor who cares for the wellbeing of their congregation, makes sure they have food and shelter,” he added, leaving out the bit about how advertising click-throughs might as well be the new collection basket.

But as surely as pride goeth before a fall, putting yourself on a par with the Almighty is a sure recipe for disaster.

Contemporary music history fans will recall when in 1996 John Lennon said The Beatles were “more popular than Jesus”.

Within five short years the band had careered off into the weeds of pretentious psychedelia (“I am the Walrus”, anyone?), broken up, and left Lennon recording the most obnoxious earworm of all time, “Imagine”.

But there’s an even bigger point for those concerned about where this is all going. Namely, no trend lasts forever, and nothing can keep going in the same direction without flying off a cliff eventually.

To take another example, figuring that things only go in one direction leads to the sort of thinking that saw all but a few pundits (cough, cough) predicting that Hillary Clinton would easily knock off Trump because demographic trends seemed to be locking in Democrat majorities to forever.

Or led others in another age to believe the sun would never set on the British Empire.

But you never know. Facebook might still take over the world.