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This made me laugh.

And no.

Didn't know this thread was from 2013.

Microsoft's future was a bit bleak at this point, but I don't think anyone saw them being gone in 5 years. Facebook was and continues to make $$$$, so I don't know why he predicted their downfall. Anyway, this guy was dead wrong and whoever he is probably is eating plenty of crow at this point.

Such a thing is impossible to predict but anyone who believes a company or business cannot crash hard needs to go back and look at history. The prerequisite, however, is someone coming up with something better. That means a timeframe is nothing but a guess, especially since the companies in question might be the ones to come up with that "something better"--or, especially in Microsoft's case, the company that buys the company that comes up with something better.

As far as the underhanded way these companies do business, I don't think that can really be argued. They get away with it because they can. When you control the market, you can dictate terms to consumers.

Microsoft is a good example of this in both directions. They control the OS market so they do what they want while basically ignoring any backlash. They tried to do the same thing with the game console market but lacked the same kind of leverage and got knocked down a peg.

Hmm. I like old threads. Outside of the time predictions, I think he's wrong about MS but right about FB. MS is adaptable, big and has enough products to weather rough times but fb doesn't.

That's really funny, please tell another one.
I do think Facebook as a social network is on its final days, but I don't know, both companies are too big to go down so fast.

EDIT: Just saw it's a pretty old prediction. But I still think Facebook, the social network website, is about to die.

It will only happen if something else comes along to disrupt these companies. It's not that simple..

This is what i call an attention seeker. Might make more sense if he said Windows will disappear but not Microsoft. Facebook on the other hand might go under but not in a short time frame of 3 years.

This prediction is from 2013. The 3 years for Facebook and 5 years for Microsoft have passed.

That said, Facebook does look a bit wobbly right now. I could see it start to fall within 3 years from today, but not vanish completely in that time frame. Once it starts its decline, it will likely never recover and eventually will disappear completely. It's a social network, so everything is driven by social trends. If Europe or the US decides to grow some balls and stop Facebook from buying up every start up with a chance to compete with it, and a new network or networks disrupt it, then once the ball starts rolling and people jump ship for the new networks, their friends will follow, and then their friends, and their friends, and so on. That's how Myspace died.

Microsoft is different. When this prediction was made, it did look very wobbly too. But the new CEO has diversified and future proofed the company a bit, so it'll stay relevant a bit longer. It would never disappear though, just become irrelevant, like IBM. IBM invented the ATM, the PC, the magnetic strip on the back of credit cards, the barcodes on our products, the floppy disk, the hard drive, and yet after all that most people who know who they are understand that they're basically irrelevant now, even if they're still huge. I could see Microsoft meeting a similar fate someday, even if Windows and Office keep it alive for a long time after it's relevant.