I find the idea of Facebook getting boring very interesting. Do people complain about email or gmail getting boring? Their address book? Skype? "Safari is boring these days"? For many people, Facebook is a medium. My girlfriend is busy on the iPad writing stuff in her family's private group. I am just going through the timeline looking for interesting articles just like I do on HN.
Now I wonder what people who consider Facebook "boring" did before they left. Play games or be there just for the novelty of it? Then this is not a loss for existing users.
I can understand the privacy concerns and the "not useful" answer though, with the terrible usability & iOS app.
I would say that Facebook positioned themselves as a news outlet, not a generic communications medium. In the beginning, the news was fresh, you were learning all kinds of interesting things about your friends; many of whom you had previously lost touch with. That was exciting and interesting.
After some time passes, you've learned everything you want to know about said people and the information starts to become stale and repetitive. Combined with others feeling the same way and pulling back, a feedback loop emerges where good content starts to dwindle even quicker, worsening the problem.
If I came to HN six months from now and all of the articles were still about the Facebook IPO, I think I would probably say that HN has become boring too. That is where, I believe, the sentiment is coming from.
Now I wonder what people who consider Facebook "boring" did before they left. Play games or be there just for the novelty of it? Then this is not a loss for existing users.
I can understand the privacy concerns and the "not useful" answer though, with the terrible usability & iOS app.