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My guess is that Facebook wants to sell personalization and credits as a service. Once a few YC startups become successful, Facebook will showcase them to legi

by codexon 16y ago

My guess is that Facebook wants to sell personalization and credits as a service. Once a few YC startups become successful, Facebook will showcase them to legitimize their "product". Big companies will want to join in, and then Facebook will start charging for it.

csmeder 16y ago
Yeah but 30% is a big cut. Thats what they want for their credits correct? Basically they want to become the de-facto APP store for web apps? For example: A user has a Facebook account with his credit card attached to it and now every YC startup has a button that says buy Plan A for 8.95 a month. In single click the FB user is now a user of the the YC funded App (He doesn't have to fill in any email or password, or his Credit Card number) and the App is able to bill the FB user 70% of $8.95 a month. Its a win for the the YC startup because this new button takes all the friction out of buying the App ( having to make an account and open your wallet to type your credit card number in). FB wins because they control web 3.0 and get a 30% cut. If I didn't think this was a really boring way to make money I was going to submit this idea about a year ago as a YC application.
- _delirium 16y ago
  Isn't PayPal in a pretty good position to undercut that sort of thing? While everyone complains about their fees, they're nowhere near 30%. And while their penetration isn't as great as Facebook's, Facebook's penetration-of-users-who've-entered-CCs is also likely to take some time to ramp up.
  - nl 16y ago
    But Facebook has a killer distribution platform, which Paypal doesn't. The Chrome Appstore is another competitor (which, ironically is complementary to PayPal because of Google's complete incompetence in not rolling out Google Checkout world wide)
- maukdaddy 16y ago
  Ugh what a frightening future you picture there. =( Let me put my MBA hat on - don't back out of a good money-making idea because you think it is boring way of making $$$. Spend a couple of years making an awesome product, then either sell it and do something interesting or live off the profits and do something interesting.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    On the last point, startups have a pretty high failure rate, so you also have to factor in the possibility that you'd spend a couple of years doing something boring that you hate, and still not end up any richer. I wouldn't go for something unless either you found it actually interesting to work on, or you somehow knew you had a 90%+ chance of succeeding.
  - djcapelis 16y ago
    Awesome products tend to come from enthusiastic developers. If the GP couldn't believe in his idea he was not wrong to discard it.
- sprout 16y ago
  I have yet to link up my credit card to the Android app store. I'm definitely not going to trust Facebook with that information. (And especially among Facebook's first users, I don't think you'll find many willing to trust Facebook as a money handler.)

by codexon 16y ago

csmeder 16y ago

Yeah but 30% is a big cut. Thats what they want for their credits correct? Basically they want to become the de-facto APP store for web apps? For example: A user has a Facebook account with his credit card attached to it and now every YC startup has a button that says buy Plan A for 8.95 a month. In single click the FB user is now a user of the the YC funded App (He doesn't have to fill in any email or password, or his Credit Card number) and the App is able to bill the FB user 70% of $8.95 a month. Its a win for the the YC startup because this new button takes all the friction out of buying the App ( having to make an account and open your wallet to type your credit card number in). FB wins because they control web 3.0 and get a 30% cut. If I didn't think this was a really boring way to make money I was going to submit this idea about a year ago as a YC application.

_delirium 16y ago
Isn't PayPal in a pretty good position to undercut that sort of thing? While everyone complains about their fees, they're nowhere near 30%. And while their penetration isn't as great as Facebook's, Facebook's penetration-of-users-who've-entered-CCs is also likely to take some time to ramp up.
- nl 16y ago
  But Facebook has a killer distribution platform, which Paypal doesn't. The Chrome Appstore is another competitor (which, ironically is complementary to PayPal because of Google's complete incompetence in not rolling out Google Checkout world wide)
maukdaddy 16y ago
Ugh what a frightening future you picture there. =( Let me put my MBA hat on - don't back out of a good money-making idea because you think it is boring way of making $$$. Spend a couple of years making an awesome product, then either sell it and do something interesting or live off the profits and do something interesting.
- _delirium 16y ago
  On the last point, startups have a pretty high failure rate, so you also have to factor in the possibility that you'd spend a couple of years doing something boring that you hate, and still not end up any richer. I wouldn't go for something unless either you found it actually interesting to work on, or you somehow knew you had a 90%+ chance of succeeding.
- djcapelis 16y ago
  Awesome products tend to come from enthusiastic developers. If the GP couldn't believe in his idea he was not wrong to discard it.
sprout 16y ago
I have yet to link up my credit card to the Android app store. I'm definitely not going to trust Facebook with that information. (And especially among Facebook's first users, I don't think you'll find many willing to trust Facebook as a money handler.)