Does low number of Bitcoin Facebook "Likes" prove we are all early adopters?

[BitChick]

This is not a scientific test by any means, but I just looked on Facebook to see how many "likes" Bitcoin has.  The top page is Bitcoin Users Org with 244,755 likes.  Compare this with something like "Dogs" with 6,509,886 and it is almost comical.  Of course, many of us here understand the value of anonymity.  My husband advised me to be quiet about our BTC holdings.  Who knows, some day just a handful could be worth millions so it might be better not to "Like" it on Facebook and announce to the world we have some.  There may be some of us that choose not to "Like" it for that reason alone.  Or most of the people using BTC do not use Facebook?  That could be the case too. 

But does the small number of "likes" hint at the fact that we are still very early adopters in this?   Just thinking. . .

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[bg002h]

This is a very good social observation. I think that mainstream adopters won't think twice about liking Bitcoin on Facebook. So, I agree that the number of likes is a low estimate of total users (although it's higher than I thought it would be...and perhaps many likers are not users), it's probably not a bad estimate of main streamers.

We don't seem to have many women on this forum, but I think the female perspective is sorely needed here in general.

[BitChick]

We don't seem to have many women on this forum, but I think the female perspective is sorely needed here in general.

   Thanks.  Not everyone has been so kind, but some do not seem to mind a little estrogen.

My husband always tells me I am more "logical" then most females, so maybe I am not "normal?"  I try to bridge the gap between Mars and Venus though.

[CasinoBit]

I did not "Like" Bitcoin and neither any of my friends, you wouldn't want to give a company that already has so much information even more information that could potentially make you a target.

[BitChick]

perhaps. fb privacy etc is ok at best.
also, i think we'll be dead before a few bitcoins are ever worth millions.
but, i like your thoughts

I exaggerate with the millions, but it is fun to dream.  

But I respect my husband's wishes for not saying anything on Facebook.  I suppose if BTC becomes mainstream and someone can figure out we were early adopters (with Facebook's great privacy I am sure it would be easily found) there could be a risk I guess, even if we really do not have much invested. We are not like the early miners!  That said,  I am glad my husband did not mine them and then sell them for pizza or anything like that.  I can only imagine how that would feel!  

[bg002h]

I'm a pseudo early adopter...I mined a few hundred ฿ before you needed anything more than last years laptop...but those were short lived days for me. I remember "wasting" like $20 on bitcoinmarket.com when the price rose sharply from less than a penny per coin to like several ¢ per coin.

I'm not afraid of the wild success of Bitcoin. There are many far ฿-richer people than I who's holdings are more or less well known...I have no intention of ending up incredibly wealthy. I've got a great career ahead of me that will provide well enough for what I want to get done in life. Bitcoin is a bridge to get me through the rest of residency...not my retirement plan.

[Cryptoman]

I recently removed my "like" from Bitcoin on Facebook, along with all the other likes for groups having to do with agorism, anarchism, voluntaryism, free-staters, etc.  I figured why make life any easier for all the three-letter agencies out there?

[inge]

Maybe Bitcoins adopters aren't Facebook adopters. For example: it seems that the youngest generation (the 18-20 years something) do prefers alternative social media channels  :)due to the fact that it isn't cool to use Facebook if your dad do it as well...

[wumpus]

I'm not sure anyone has thought about this before. Maybe if you create a compaign on /r/Reddit, like the recent campaign to vote for dropbox support, you could boost the number of likes

I don't have a facebook account myself but I'm sure many people potentially interested in Bitcoin do.

[BitChick]

Maybe Bitcoins adopters aren't Facebook adopters. For example: it seems that the youngest generation (the 18-20 years something) do prefers alternative social media channels  :)due to the fact that it isn't cool to use Facebook if your dad do it as well...

Yes.  I figured that.    The typical BTC user may not be a Facebook user at all.  I know my husband stays away from it.  I am willing to risk my anonymity to post pictures of my kids and dogs though.    But when it does become mainstream I am sure the number of "likes" will grow.  It will be interesting to watch I think.

[RoadToHell]

I recently removed my "like" from Bitcoin on Facebook, along with all the other likes for groups having to do with agorism, anarchism, voluntaryism, free-staters, etc.  I figured why make life any easier for all the three-letter agencies out there?

I did not "Like" Bitcoin and neither any of my friends, you wouldn't want to give a company that already has so much information even more information that could potentially make you a target.

Facebook is just bad news.  They don't care what injury they cause as long as they're making some coin.  And if a govt agency leans on them with the threat of reducing their profits they aren't going to fight it.

[Trongersoll]

Where is this Bitcoin on Facebook of which you speak?

[bassclef]

I think most early adopters value their privacy. If BTC becomes as popular as dogs, watch out because you'll be suddenly sitting on a lot of cash. All sorts of people (family, friends, various leeches, con artists) come out of the woodwork when they find out you have money. Best not to broadcast your wealth to the interwebs.

[twobits]

This is not a scientific test by any means, but I just looked on Facebook to see how many "likes" Bitcoin has.  The top page is Bitcoin Users Org with 244,755 likes.  Compare this with something like "Dogs" with 6,509,886 and it is almost comical.  Of course, many of us here understand the value of anonymity.  My husband advised me to be quiet about our BTC holdings.  Who knows, some day just a handful could be worth millions so it might be better not to "Like" it on Facebook and announce to the world we have some.  There may be some of us that choose not to "Like" it for that reason alone.  Or most of the people using BTC do not use Facebook?  That could be the case too. 

But does the small number of "likes" hint at the fact that we are still very early adopters in this?   Just thinking. . .

I am in the majority of people in the world that do not use facebook.  As I understand it, it has a real name policy.  I can also be pretty sure that I would not 'like' bitcoin on it even if I was on it as I don't want to have to answer questions from potential client sand such about why I  liked an 'underground'  'hackers' currency, as I have heard some of them call it.

[ArticMine]

There are many of us who simply have no use for Facebook. I personally particularly dislike the closed proprietary nature of Facebook. Now if there were a way do dislike Facebook on bitcointalk.org. While I am at it way to dislike Apple would also be good.

[BitChick]

Where is this Bitcoin on Facebook of which you speak?

https://www.facebook.com/bitcoinusers?fref=ts

[Gordonium]

Yes it does.

[BitChick]

Or most of the people using BTC do not use Facebook?  That could be the case too.  

Well there are 2 kinds of people : those who value privacy, and those who use facebook.
BTC users are the first kind.

Kind of figured.  My husband is definitely one who values privacy and he is the typical BTC user.  I, on the other hand, am a typical Facebook user.  It is too hard for me not to share cute pics of my kids and dogs though so I am willing to give up some privacy.  But like I said, I will respect my husband's wishes for not broadcasting some things on there, especially that we have BTC.  

In fact, my husband has told me not to tell many people we are investing in BTC.  That raises another question, how many BTC holders are private about it?  If word of mouth has not been spreading it, the growth is pretty impressive in spite of that too.  Just thinking here. . .

[Exoskeleton]

There are many of us who simply have no use for Facebook. I personally particularly dislike the closed proprietary nature of Facebook. Now if there were a way do dislike Facebook on bitcointalk.org. While I am at it way to dislike Apple would also be good.

I love it!

I will never get a facebook because they own your info and they have adds on the site. My social life is not a means for others to profit. The way they share your info for money is scary as well.

And I think everybody is a bit too paranoid about their $5,000 in coins being worth much more in this lifetime. Even if you someday had $5,000,000 from that you are hardly a target. There are neighborhoods in the US where every single household has 10x that. People cant torture you for your savings password if you only have it in a saftey deposit box in your states biggest and safest bank branch now can they?

In 10 years nobody will know who still has any coins left so don't sweat a facebook site post. You act like people will start showing up at your house during the purge of 2021 or something.    

[BitChick]

Even if you someday had $5,000,000 from that you are hardly a target. There are neighborhoods in the US where every single household has 10x that. People cant torture you for your savings password if you only have it in a saftey deposit box in your states biggest and safest bank branch now can they?

In 10 years nobody will know who still has any coins left so don't sweat a facebook site post. You act like people will start showing up at your house during the purge of 2021 or something.    

Ahhh, but family and friends from Facebook might show up asking for handouts.  It happens.   Since we are boring, middle class Americans our friend might treat us differently too if they found out we even have a few hundred thousand in the bank.  But, yes, it is probably just a dream anyways and Facebook privacy is a topic in itself apart from BTC.

[Exoskeleton]

Even if you someday had $5,000,000 from that you are hardly a target. There are neighborhoods in the US where every single household has 10x that. People cant torture you for your savings password if you only have it in a saftey deposit box in your states biggest and safest bank branch now can they?

In 10 years nobody will know who still has any coins left so don't sweat a facebook site post. You act like people will start showing up at your house during the purge of 2021 or something.    

Ahhh, but family and friends from Facebook might show up asking for handouts.  It happens.   Since we are boring, middle class Americans our friend might treat us differently too if they found out we even have a few hundred thousand in the bank.  But, yes, it is probably just a dream anyways and Facebook privacy is a topic in itself apart from BTC.

I understand your motives.

If you did wind up with "even a few hundred thousand" from a $500 investment won't you spread a bit around though? This is "free money" for the most part. I shure as hell will. To everyone I care about whenever I can. If you really want to hide your wealth from "family and friends" I do see how that might save a you a few awkward moments.

Its just me personally I don't mind telling my real friends and family yes with a smile and the others no. No problem at all with saying no right to someones face. If they have to ask me, they should be ready for a no anyways.

[BitChick]

Update:

The number of Likes for the Bitcoin Users Org on Facebook has actually gone down a little since I first posted this. It is now 244,724 (granted it only dropped by 20) but it has not increased at all.  So does that mean the popularity of Bitcoin has remained stagnant this past month?  Perhaps it could be tied to the stagnation in price too?  I know, many of us here are not Facebook users (as discussed) but I wanted to watch this to see if there was any growth as the price grows.  It will be interesting to me what the price per BTC is when there is a user group on Facebook that is larger than 1,000,000.

[CasinoBit]

Update:

The number of Likes for the Bitcoin Users Org on Facebook has actually gone down a little since I first posted this. It is now 244,724 (granted it only dropped by 20) but it has not increased at all.  So does that mean the popularity of Bitcoin has remained stagnant this past month?  Perhaps it could be tied to the stagnation in price too?  I know, many of us here are not Facebook users (as discussed) but I wanted to watch this to see if there was any growth as the price grows.  It will be interesting to me what the price per BTC is when there is a user group on Facebook that is larger than 1,000,000.

It comes to no surprise that this thread was opened by a female, women typically posses a higher social intelligence, problem is it's really not applicable in this case.

[DigitalDoom]

Update:

The number of Likes for the Bitcoin Users Org on Facebook has actually gone down a little since I first posted this. It is now 244,724 (granted it only dropped by 20) but it has not increased at all.  So does that mean the popularity of Bitcoin has remained stagnant this past month?  Perhaps it could be tied to the stagnation in price too?  I know, many of us here are not Facebook users (as discussed) but I wanted to watch this to see if there was any growth as the price grows.  It will be interesting to me what the price per BTC is when there is a user group on Facebook that is larger than 1,000,000.

It comes to no surprise that this thread was opened by a female, women typically posses a higher social intelligence, problem is it's really not applicable in this case.

Personally I don't really think the amount of FB "Likes" has any relation to the amount of people using Bitcoin nor is it any sort of gauge for public knowledge/understanding of Bitcoin. I agree with the statement that there are 2 types of people...those who FB and those who BTC. Each product targets a completely different client base.

I will also say that I believe those of us getting into Bitcoin now are absolutely "early-adopters". Maybe not to the extent of miners in 2010, but Bitcoin has hardly reached the point of widespread acceptance. I'm 41 years old and doubt I will live long enough to see a Bitcoin (or it's predecessor) world currency. I'm mining and buying now with the hope that my children or grandchildren might one day reap the rewards of my efforts once I'm gone.

I do have a FB account but don't really do the whole FB thing. I don't much worry about the privacy issue with it so much, it's just not my kind of thing. To me, FB feels a whole lot like the small-town gossip chain on world-wide scale...nothing about it excites me.

As far as the personal privacy issue, some people seem concerned with...welcome to the new age of technology! Facebook is just the first to be blatantly obvious about it. We can't put this Genie back in the bottle, it's only a matter of time before your privacy becomes public knowledge anyway...there's just no getting around it.

Unless you have somehow managed to completely avoid all manner of digital correspondence, someone out there has more info on you than you would like for any oppressive govt type entity to gain. Remember...someone is listening to and possibly recording all of your cellphone calls and texts, all of your emails, all of your forum posts...everything that you transmit over airwaves or through a modem can and (probably is) be monitored and recorded. It's just the world we live in from now on (+ the past 2 decades)...it's evolution and you can adapt and survive or fight it and die.

[TheKoziTwo]

That page, "bitcoin users org" is an "app page", which I believe was used to promote a business. If I had to guess, most of the likes are from people who have no idea what bitcoin even is. They have had more than 240k likes forever, they probably just bought most of the likes and had a few likes from bitcoin users as well who didn't know better.

The real bitcoin group seems to be Bitcoin P2P Cryptocurrency and it has slightly less than 14k likes.

This is just speculation from my side, I am not too into the whole facebook thing so I might be wrong, but that page even links to a non defunct website. Maybe someone could shed some light on this.

[numismatist]

PR
ISM

[BitChick]

That page, "bitcoin users org" is an "app page", which I believe was used to promote a business. If I had to guess, most of the likes are from people who have no idea what bitcoin even is. They have had more than 240k likes forever, they probably just bought most of the likes and had a few likes from bitcoin users as well who didn't know better.

The real bitcoin group seems to be Bitcoin P2P Cryptocurrency and it has slightly less than 14k likes.

This is just speculation from my side, I am not too into the whole facebook thing so I might be wrong, but that page even links to a non defunct website. Maybe someone could shed some light on this.

I have not officially "Liked" anything BTC related on Facebook.  It is interesting that the Bitcoin Users Org App page could be for business promotion so is not really relevant at all.  I really don't know.  But if that page is not relevant, that would lead me to believe that perhaps we are even earlier than I thought in all of this if the true number we should look at is the Bitcoin P2P Cryptocurrency page with only 14k likes.  Seriously, it is really easy to get likes for popular things on Facebook!  Many people are very passionate about Bitcoin in the Bitcoin community and I would think that would crossover to Facebook, for the small number of Facebook/BTC users, but like some have said on this thread it could be that the Facebook user and BTC user are from two different worlds for the most part.

Maybe as a female Facebook user I am a unusual bitcoin user?    Probably.

[maco]

Well, it also depends on the length of time and relevance of content that the Page is putting out. The content needs to add value to the users or else the page can lose a lot of likes for reasons of 'lack of posting' or 'seems like advertising/marketing' and many other factors. Managing a Facebook page is easy to do, if you just let it sit, and add no value. But that won't help much with contributing value.

This is not a scientific test by any means, but I just looked on Facebook to see how many "likes" Bitcoin has.  The top page is Bitcoin Users Org with 244,755 likes.  Compare this with something like "Dogs" with 6,509,886 and it is almost comical.  Of course, many of us here understand the value of anonymity.  My husband advised me to be quiet about our BTC holdings.  Who knows, some day just a handful could be worth millions so it might be better not to "Like" it on Facebook and announce to the world we have some.  There may be some of us that choose not to "Like" it for that reason alone.  Or most of the people using BTC do not use Facebook?  That could be the case too. 

But does the small number of "likes" hint at the fact that we are still very early adopters in this?   Just thinking. . .

[phillipsjk]

I fail to see why "Likes" on somebody's random Facebook (group?) indicates the popularity of an item. Why does "dogs" have so many likes? Who gets to decide which dog lovers' group is the "official" one for estimating popularity? BitChick seems to be suggesting the shorter name wins, possibly because it was chosen "first".

I would like to add to the You won't find me on Facebook sentiment. Technically, Facebook has a "Shadow profile" on me, including pictures of my face (not tagged to my knowledge). This is because I have friends and family who use Facebook. I suppose you can just write me off as anti-social too.

[Rampion]

It proves that the average Bitcoin user is very well aware of how valuable privacy is, and tends not to hang around useless places which business model is to sell your personal information as Facebook does.

[Sebacious]

I'm in the first 0.1% of the population to like dogs!  I'm a dog early adopter!


I doubt that the bitcoin demographic and the facebook-like demographic overlaps much.

[Exocyst]

Do people still use facebook? I thought it was just an advertising site now.

[nwbitcoin]

Facebook is so old - I was an early adopter of it, but I've completely lost interest in it by today.

Maybe that is the problem?  Mainstream and early adopter are two mutually exclusive terms?

There is also the issue that bitcoin evangelists are also more likely to be paranoid about Facebook could do with their data, and so are not stupid enough to share?

[phillipsjk]

I asked my (female) room-mate about this. She said that 250K+ likes is a lot for a niche product. She compared it to Ragnarok Online, one of the longest-running MMORPGs with only 122K likes. She also said there was nothing to discuss when I asked why people would even use facebook at all.

At the risk of beating a dead horse: Facebook: Where Your Friends Are Your Worst Enemies
Firm: Facebook 'bug' worse than reported (by Facebook to users); non-users also affected