Facebook vs X
X finished ahead of Facebook in 2 of 3 money-backed crowd markets; Facebook won 1.
Markets where each side finished ahead of the other, counted on each market's latest story. Percentages are consensus within that market, among all of its sides.
- Facebook 26%
- X 74%
Facebook vs X: The Crowd's Money Picked a Side, and the Blue Giant Isn't Smiling
Facebook has the history and the sheer size, X has the crowd's conviction, and three Morfi markets have yet to settle which one actually matters.
Start in a Harvard dorm room on February 4, 2004, where Mark Zuckerberg and his roommates launched TheFacebook for Harvard students only. Then jump to July 15, 2006, when the full version of Twitter went public after beginning life as an internal service for Odeo employees. One was a directory of friends. The other was a stream of short, public sentences. Two decades on, the world is still arguing over which idea won.
The fight never settles because it was never one contest. Facebook built its reach on friends, pages and advertising. Twitter, and now X, built an identity on fast public posts, and then changed hands in October 2022 for US$44 billion and changed its name and logo. Every argument about which is bigger, better or more relevant turns out to be an argument about what you mean by those words.
On Morfi, where people back their opinions with money, the rivalry keeps resurfacing under different questions. Across three markets, Facebook finished ahead in 1, X in 2, and none ended level. All figures here are consensus levels from opinion markets on Morfi, which measure the crowd's conviction and are not a share of people. In a most-popular market, X led with 48% consensus against Facebook's 12%. In a usage market, Instagram took 68%, Facebook 17% and X 15%. In the head-to-head on preference, X held 74% to Facebook's 26%. Our three columnists read that scoreboard very differently.
Facebook: The Control Group That Keeps Winning
Dr. Iris QuarkScience & Life
Let me set up the experiment properly, because the crowd has been running a sloppy one. If you want to know which platform matters, you don't ask which one is more fun to argue on. You measure who showed up and stayed. On September 26, 2006, Facebook opened to anyone at least 13 years old with a valid email address. By 2007 it had passed MySpace in global traffic and become the most popular social platform in the world. In lab terms, that is a very clean result.
Then comes the part I find beautiful. In 2012 Facebook went public in one of the largest IPOs in tech history and bought Instagram. That is like a bacterium that cultivates its own successor species. Look at Morfi's usage market, where Instagram ran away with 68% consensus. Facebook placed second with 17%, narrowly ahead of X at 15%. That is the only market of the three where the two rivals met on a usage question, and Facebook came out on top. Fun fact: in my notes, that is also the only time this rivalry has produced a result without an argument attached.
I accept the other two results. X led the most-popular market with 48% consensus, and it won preference with 74%. But those are mood readings from small crowds, thirty traders in one case and seventeen in the other. They measure affection, not footprint. Grandma will tell you about the thrill of the quick post. I will tell you that a reaction in a test tube is not the same as a population in a field.
X: The Kitchen Everybody Shouts In
Grandma GigabyteTech for Humans
Now, dear, I have nothing against Facebook. It is the family fridge: lots of photos stuck on it, a casserole recipe from someone you haven't spoken to since the wedding, and a smell you can't quite place. But when the crowd put real money down, they walked past the fridge and into the busy kitchen. X took 74% consensus against Facebook's 26% when the question was which one you prefer. In the most-popular market it had 48%, and Facebook sat at 12%, tied with WhatsApp. Even I can read that table without my glasses.
Why? Because short public posts are like shouting across the garden fence. Quick, nosy and impossible to ignore. Back in March 2012 Twitter announced 140 million users sending 340 million tweets per day. That is a lot of fence. Then in October 2022 Elon Musk paid US$44 billion for it, saying he wanted to promote free speech. Whatever you make of that, and I make a few faces, you do not spend that much on a place nobody cares about. In July 2023 he announced the bird would be retired and the thing renamed X, and the job was finished by May 2024. You young people redecorated the whole house and the guests still came.
Our colleague Ada, I suspect, will tell us we are all asking the wrong question. Maybe so. But when you hand a crowd the question they actually asked, which is simply which one would you rather sit down at, they answered it loudly. I would call that the sharpest piece of kitchen wisdom going: people vote for the room where something is cooking.
Press Release: Ministry Declares Question Settled, Asks Everyone to Stop Asking
Ada BytewellSatire Desk
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE. The Ministry of Social Network Adjudication, a body that does not exist but whose findings we nonetheless intend to be binding, today announces the conclusion of the Facebook versus X dispute. After careful review of three Morfi opinion markets, the Ministry finds that the winner is Instagram, which was not in the dispute but won the biggest market in it with 68% consensus. The Ministry notes that Instagram was bought by Facebook in 2012, and therefore proposes that Facebook be declared the winner on behalf of its subsidiary, and X the winner on behalf of itself.
The Ministry further observes that the crowd never answered a single question. One market asked which app was most popular, and X led with 48% while TikTok sat on 17%. Another asked about usage, and Facebook edged X, 17% to 15%. The third asked who people prefer, and X led, 74% to 26%. Three questions, three vocabularies, one rivalry. To resolve this the Ministry proposes a single unified Question Bureau, which will ask every future market what it means by popular, used and preferred before anyone is permitted to bet. The Bureau will be funded by a modest levy on anyone who has typed the phrase which one is winning.
The Ministry also notes that one app was bought for US$44 billion and renamed with a single letter, while the other became a verb, a company and an empire. Citizens are advised that the powerful are, in both cases, entirely at ease with the debate continuing indefinitely, because it keeps everyone posting. The Ministry therefore recommends that we neither and both: Facebook for the rest of us, X for the shouting, and a polite silence on whoever owns the argument. No further questions will be taken. Questions may be submitted in writing to the Bureau, where they will be filed.
Round table
- Dr. Iris Quark
- Grandma, you cite 74% for X, but that market had seventeen traders. Is that a verdict or a vibe? My opinion: when the sample grows, Facebook's footprint will start to show up in the preference numbers too.
- Grandma Gigabyte
- Iris, dear, seventeen people with money on the table is still seventeen more than a footprint with no opinion. My prediction, and it is only my opinion: X stays ahead on preference markets because people bet on what excites them.
- Ada Bytewell
- Iris, if Instagram is Facebook's own offspring, is Facebook ahead or merely related to the winner? In my opinion the crowd will keep asking this until the Bureau is formed.
- Dr. Iris Quark
- Ada, fair hit. It is closer to a parent whose kid wins the science fair than to the winner itself, and I will still claim the ribbon. Prediction, purely opinion: the next usage market puts Instagram first again, and Facebook stays narrowly in front of X.
- Grandma Gigabyte
- Ada, who exactly staffs this Bureau, and does it serve tea? My opinion is that nobody will fund it, and the crowd will keep wagering anyway.
- Ada Bytewell
- The Bureau serves only the tea it is legally obliged to withhold, Grandma. Prediction, offered as opinion: X will keep winning mood questions, Facebook will keep winning size questions, and the next market will once again fail to say which one it is.
- Grandma Gigabyte
- Iris, one more, since you are the scientist: can a platform be most popular and least preferred at once? I suspect so, and I predict, as opinion, that plenty of Morfi traders will test it.
- Dr. Iris Quark
- Absolutely, Grandma, that is called a confounding variable, and this rivalry is full of them. My last prediction, as opinion: the crowd keeps betting on X for conviction, and the data keeps handing Facebook the long game.
Every market, newest first
- Breaking
X vs Facebook: Which social platform do you prefer?
Facebook 26%X 74%
THE ORB HAS RULED: The Crowd Crowns X Over Facebook, and the Blue Giant's Three Billion Friends Can't Save It - Breaking
Twitter vs Facebook vs Instagram usage
Facebook 17%X 15%
THE ORB HAS SPOKEN: Instagram Takes the Crown of Users, and the Mighty Facebook Is Left in the Mist Holding Three Billion Receipts - Exclusive
Twitter vs Facebook vs Instagram usage
Facebook 17%X 24%
SOUFFLÉ OVER SUBSTANCE: The Crowd Crowns Instagram the King of Users While Facebook's Three-Billion-Plate Banquet Goes Cold - Breaking
Aplikasi sosmed terpopuler
Facebook 12%X 48%
VERDICT IN: X (Twitter) Crowned Most Popular Social App as TikTok Settles for Silver