> What I find immensely interesting is how they're pulling in around $11/user/year (about $4 in pure profit)! Their economy of scale is pretty good considering

> What I find immensely interesting is how they're pulling in around $11/user/year (about $4 in pure profit)! Their economy of scale is pretty good considering it only costs them about $7/user/year to run the service. I'd easily pay $10/year for a service like FB that didn't entirely suck and had all my friends on it. If you're not blocking facebook ads, they're making far more money from you than $10/yr. There's a huge difference in the value of different eyeballs and anyone on HN is probably worth significantly more than average to advertisers. $11/user/yr is tiny for a social network that is many people's primary communication tool, it's only going to get bigger as facebook growth levels off and mobile continues to monetize better.