Speaking as someone who deleted his Facebook account years ago, a positive that FB brings to the world is ubiquitous and easy sharing of personal information with the public. With an FB account, you can keep in touch with even casual acquaintances, perhaps forming a connection. That's pretty deep, and a net positive for humanity, and fulfills the promise of the internet.
I predict that what we call "social media" today - this specific aspect of ubiquitous human connection - will continue long after FB is gone and forgotten. I foresee that the ultimate successor will likely be more of a protocol like RSS or FOAF that various platforms can plug into, rather than another web app you log into, owned by yet another monetizing corporation.
The picture you paint of connecting with friends and acquaintances is no longer how Facebook works for me.
The last years, my Facebook feed has been completely dominated by a few groups I'm in (OK, I guess - but not what I signed up for originally), news and commercial entities I have "liked" at some point, and ads.
I never see my friends there any more, unless they're the marketing hustle type. It feels honestly not entirely unlike LinkedIn, which is not a compliment.
As a test, I visited some of my better friends profiles to see if they have posted anything lately. None had. For YEARS. All their content has moved either to Instagram or Snapchat, or they have just stopped posting altogether.
But my group of friends still use Facebook as our primary Event invitation system, and roughly everyone has FB Messenger (as that's the standard here in Norway).
Yeah. Agreed. It had stopped working that way for me when I quit, also. And they kept lecturing me and my friends about community standards. I got tired of that stifling, moralizing hypocrisy. I guess I speak more of the original vision of FB.
I predict that what we call "social media" today - this specific aspect of ubiquitous human connection - will continue long after FB is gone and forgotten. I foresee that the ultimate successor will likely be more of a protocol like RSS or FOAF that various platforms can plug into, rather than another web app you log into, owned by yet another monetizing corporation.