On Thursday, Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc. (FB) went into an "epic, historic spiral" -- shearing $220 billion, or 20%, from its value and "hinting that the company's reign over online socializing might not last," The Washington Post reports.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been able to steer the global social media colossus for the past 18 years through scandals, regulatory pressure, lawsuits, whistleblowers and competitors.

The latest earnings report gives signs, that "Facebook's dream of connecting the whole world is dead."

Daily Log-Ins Stall

The most significant number in its quarterly earnings report, issued after-hours Wednesday, was that its flagship social network, known as Big Blue App internally, stalled just below 2 billion daily log-ins.

"The news that Facebook may have peaked in 2021 was only the most symbolic data point in a gloomy corporate earnings report that sent Meta's stock into an epic, historic spiral," the Post says. The downturn, shocking to many investors, also took the tech-heavy Nasdaq down 3% with it.

Meta blamed its disappointing results on Apple Inc.'s new advertising privacy crackdown that restricts companies' targeted ads on iPhones. However, the Post also pointed to Meta's difficulties monetizing its Instagram holding's short video product, Reels, to compete with China's TikTok giant.

In addition, Meta is spending tons of cash on Reality Labs to build the so-called virtual reality "metaverse."

Until now, Facebook has touted its daily active users number with each earnings report. Certainly, garnering the loyalty of 2 billion people of the 7.753 billion people living on the earth is an "enormous, almost incomprehensible figure" -- and Facebook has proven through its ruthlessness that it is willing to expand and conquer the world at any cost, even at the expense of lives and users' sense of self-worth.

Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has gloated that it is his intention to connect the entire world.

Not Facebook's 'Myspace moment'

As the Post puts it, "This is not Facebook's 'Myspace moment.'"

Facebook is no longer Meta's prized holding. It is a legacy holding, the Post even goes so far to say -- and "Wednesday's earnings report showed that Facebook's ascent has stalled just about everywhere."

The Post bets that Meta will pivot to focus on Instagram and interconnectivity among its various platforms on both the front- and back-ends. It could create marketplaces among its platforms, for instance. It could also expand Internet access in places where Facebook is not ubiquitous, such as Africa and Latin America.

But the bottom line is that Zuckerberg may not be able to get the whole world on Facebook -- or any other one platform -- for that matter.

Maybe it is an elusive challenge that no one, not even Zuckerberg, can ever surmount.