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This is absolute nonsense and dangerous to boot. Facebook's ARPU is still less than $20/year. If they literally paid all of their profits directly to their us

This is absolute nonsense and dangerous to boot. Facebook's ARPU is still less than $20/year. If they literally paid all of their profits directly to their user it would still be a pittance. The real value of privacy has to do with freedom, manipulation and surveillance, and that is not represented by economic measures at all. Talking about the value of the data in purely economic terms is exactly the way you would want to frame the issue if you had more nefarious plans down the line.

lambdadmitry 9y ago
However, this also means that they can charge users $3/mo (just to be safe) and be at least as successful as they are now, but without all the spying and manipulation. Unfortunately that will also put a cap on their profits, so it's unlikely they'll do that.
- JoshTriplett 9y ago
  There's also precedent for companies charging users and still also making money off their data.
  - shams93 9y ago
    Exactly
- chc 9y ago
  That's assuming their userbase is a lot less elastic than it probably is. They'd have to retain at least half of their current users in order for that to even come close to replacing current revenue. The reason these pay-with-your-privacy businesses are so successful is because charging actual money is a huge barrier that will drive away many customers.
  - mc32 9y ago
    And presuming they don't have a competitor offer the same services "for free". And why wouldn't someone do that, even Google could jump in to the rescue with its moribund G+.
adventured 9y ago
Facebook is probably going to hit $100+ ARPU in the US + Canada for fiscal 2018. It was $85.41 for 2017. It was $27.76 in Q4, and $21.20 in Q3 (for the US + Canada). It's not implausible that it'll eventually hit $200 per year in the US + Canada. For fun, here's their quarterly ARPU over the last few years in the US+CA, starting from 1Q15, excluding all Q4 results (Q4 skews because it spikes): $8.32, $9.30, $10.49, $12.43, $14.34, $15.65, $17.07, $19.38, $21.20 Quite the increase machine. US+CA ARPU for 4Q17 ($27.76) was triple that of 4Q14 ($9).
- dhimes 9y ago
  Where are you finding these data?
  - RhodesianHunter 9y ago
    Earnings Reports most likely. https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2018/Facebook-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2017-Results/default.aspx https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/...
    - dhimes 9y ago
      I'm seeing $40.7B in 2017 revenue, 2.1B active monthly users (1.4B daily active users). I'd like to know how the calculation is done because I'm getting very different answers using these numbers.
      - Slansitartop 9y ago
        > I'm seeing $40.7B in 2017 revenue, 2.1B active monthly users (1.4B daily active users). I'd like to know how the calculation is done because I'm getting very different answers using these numbers. There aren't 1.4B active daily users in the US and Canada, because there aren't even that many people. He's looking at the one of the richest slices of Facebook's user-base, but it looks like you're looking at the global/worldwide numbers, which include a lot of much poorer people.
white-flame 9y ago
If a company has to pay users for their data, that puts financial disincentives on collecting it in the first place, which might be interesting, irrespective of the users' finances.
- mattigames 9y ago
  Yeah, the incentive is to charge the users for the service in order to then use that money to pay for their data; or be very selective about what users are allowed to use the platform so its "worth" to pay for the data of that user.
saas_co_de 9y ago
> The real value of privacy has to do with freedom, manipulation and surveillance, and that is not represented by economic measures at all Privacy is not the only issue. Using user data for ad targeting is the past/present. The future is using users to train AI. Facial recognition in photos is a good example of this. Facebook has the most advanced facial recognition in the world because they got millions (billions?) of hours of free labor from their users classifying photos. Amazon Echo is doing the same thing with speech recognition. Cloud based AI platforms capture the data from engineers training AI algorithms and the goal is to use that data to train an AI to replace the engineers. Not only are people being duped into giving away their labor for free but they are increasingly being used to train the AIs that are going to replace their jobs.
robwensley 9y ago
I'm working on a blockchain solution that gives consumers the ability to control and monetize their data: www.databook.one @dasil003 I agree that Facebook's ARPU is super low. However, with that statistic is related to ad revenue, not revenue from the sale of data. Facebook doesn't publically sell its consumer data. Thus, we're talking apples and oranges. To buy raw data, you need to go to data brokers, who are currently earning $250 billion per year from selling consumer data. Raw data is super valuable because you can build predictive models with it. With very small samples of customer data, powerful models can be built that can deliver millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars to a business' bottom line. I can testify to this because I led the technology team for company that earned millions by leveraging machine learning to predict who would sell their house bellow market prices in the next few months. The problem with buying data from data brokers is that the quality is awful. For example, the accuracy rate of America's largest data broker, Acxiom is only 50%. This problem is holding back the advancement of machine learning. If consumers linked and verified their own data, we could improve that accuracy rate significantly and deliver much more accurate models to businesses. Thus, we expect that compensation paid by companies to individuals sharing their complete data profiles could be significant. I've seen estimates that the value of data will reach $7,500K per American per year by 2022. Even if we reached 10% of this estimate, I'd want that money in my pocket instead of some data broker. What are your thoughts?
- white-flame 9y ago
  If you put the control in the hands of the people whose data is being handled, I'm sure a significant percentage will default to "Do not share" given an explicit choice. People aren't going to directly assist and curate the ability for 3rd parties to spew more spam & spyware on their webpages and in their email inboxes. If they could see what sort of data is being tracked, that can easily trigger their creepiness receptors and wish to distance themselves from it. The only reason people endure the current situation is because they don't feel they can do anything about it, and really don't know the extent of what's going on. Empowering them will finally allow them to actively break out of that cycle.

lambdadmitry 9y ago

However, this also means that they can charge users $3/mo (just to be safe) and be at least as successful as they are now, but without all the spying and manipulation. Unfortunately that will also put a cap on their profits, so it's unlikely they'll do that.

JoshTriplett 9y ago
There's also precedent for companies charging users and still also making money off their data.
- shams93 9y ago
  Exactly
chc 9y ago
That's assuming their userbase is a lot less elastic than it probably is. They'd have to retain at least half of their current users in order for that to even come close to replacing current revenue. The reason these pay-with-your-privacy businesses are so successful is because charging actual money is a huge barrier that will drive away many customers.
- mc32 9y ago
  And presuming they don't have a competitor offer the same services "for free". And why wouldn't someone do that, even Google could jump in to the rescue with its moribund G+.

adventured 9y ago

Facebook is probably going to hit $100+ ARPU in the US + Canada for fiscal 2018. It was $85.41 for 2017. It was $27.76 in Q4, and $21.20 in Q3 (for the US + Canada). It's not implausible that it'll eventually hit $200 per year in the US + Canada. For fun, here's their quarterly ARPU over the last few years in the US+CA, starting from 1Q15, excluding all Q4 results (Q4 skews because it spikes): $8.32, $9.30, $10.49, $12.43, $14.34, $15.65, $17.07, $19.38, $21.20 Quite the increase machine. US+CA ARPU for 4Q17 ($27.76) was triple that of 4Q14 ($9).

dhimes 9y ago
Where are you finding these data?
- RhodesianHunter 9y ago
  Earnings Reports most likely. https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2018/Facebook-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2017-Results/default.aspx https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/...
  - dhimes 9y ago
    I'm seeing $40.7B in 2017 revenue, 2.1B active monthly users (1.4B daily active users). I'd like to know how the calculation is done because I'm getting very different answers using these numbers.
    - Slansitartop 9y ago
      > I'm seeing $40.7B in 2017 revenue, 2.1B active monthly users (1.4B daily active users). I'd like to know how the calculation is done because I'm getting very different answers using these numbers. There aren't 1.4B active daily users in the US and Canada, because there aren't even that many people. He's looking at the one of the richest slices of Facebook's user-base, but it looks like you're looking at the global/worldwide numbers, which include a lot of much poorer people.

white-flame 9y ago

If a company has to pay users for their data, that puts financial disincentives on collecting it in the first place, which might be interesting, irrespective of the users' finances.

mattigames 9y ago
Yeah, the incentive is to charge the users for the service in order to then use that money to pay for their data; or be very selective about what users are allowed to use the platform so its "worth" to pay for the data of that user.

saas_co_de 9y ago

> The real value of privacy has to do with freedom, manipulation and surveillance, and that is not represented by economic measures at all Privacy is not the only issue. Using user data for ad targeting is the past/present. The future is using users to train AI. Facial recognition in photos is a good example of this. Facebook has the most advanced facial recognition in the world because they got millions (billions?) of hours of free labor from their users classifying photos. Amazon Echo is doing the same thing with speech recognition. Cloud based AI platforms capture the data from engineers training AI algorithms and the goal is to use that data to train an AI to replace the engineers. Not only are people being duped into giving away their labor for free but they are increasingly being used to train the AIs that are going to replace their jobs.

robwensley 9y ago

I'm working on a blockchain solution that gives consumers the ability to control and monetize their data: www.databook.one @dasil003 I agree that Facebook's ARPU is super low. However, with that statistic is related to ad revenue, not revenue from the sale of data. Facebook doesn't publically sell its consumer data. Thus, we're talking apples and oranges. To buy raw data, you need to go to data brokers, who are currently earning $250 billion per year from selling consumer data. Raw data is super valuable because you can build predictive models with it. With very small samples of customer data, powerful models can be built that can deliver millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars to a business' bottom line. I can testify to this because I led the technology team for company that earned millions by leveraging machine learning to predict who would sell their house bellow market prices in the next few months. The problem with buying data from data brokers is that the quality is awful. For example, the accuracy rate of America's largest data broker, Acxiom is only 50%. This problem is holding back the advancement of machine learning. If consumers linked and verified their own data, we could improve that accuracy rate significantly and deliver much more accurate models to businesses. Thus, we expect that compensation paid by companies to individuals sharing their complete data profiles could be significant. I've seen estimates that the value of data will reach $7,500K per American per year by 2022. Even if we reached 10% of this estimate, I'd want that money in my pocket instead of some data broker. What are your thoughts?

white-flame 9y ago
If you put the control in the hands of the people whose data is being handled, I'm sure a significant percentage will default to "Do not share" given an explicit choice. People aren't going to directly assist and curate the ability for 3rd parties to spew more spam & spyware on their webpages and in their email inboxes. If they could see what sort of data is being tracked, that can easily trigger their creepiness receptors and wish to distance themselves from it. The only reason people endure the current situation is because they don't feel they can do anything about it, and really don't know the extent of what's going on. Empowering them will finally allow them to actively break out of that cycle.