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I would be more than happy to pay for a premium Facebook and premium Google where 0 tracking bytes are harvested about my activity and I just use their product

I would be more than happy to pay for a premium Facebook and premium Google where 0 tracking bytes are harvested about my activity and I just use their product as it is. But we all know that as much as some people sitting in the boardrooms of these companies would want a premium service model too they will never allow it. Tracking users make them money on multiple folds that premium revenue stream would be a chump-change for them.

foepys 8y ago
How would that work? You would need an account to pay them and also need to be logged in for everything. Tracking you is so much easier then.
- CodeSheikh 8y ago
  They way I use Facebook and the kind of information I have shared with it (photos, places, connections) I have already established a valid identity with them. I don't use Facebook as some anon profile "LonelyGirl99". By paying them a premium fee Facebook and I would bind into a new agreement about not persisting my information for ad tracking and wherever possible ask its third party affiliates to do the same. Say you and I are both logged in and actively commenting on TechCrunch. You are a free user and I pay premium. TechCrunch can request FB to have metrics for free users but not for premium. Unless FB provides a backdoor, has a bug or TechCrunch savvy programmers can hack FB social plugin to extract info about premium users as well. Similarly, FB will also not sell my meta-data to advertisers. Even if I fall well into the targeting of advertisers I will be excluded. FB will not even give me "opt-out" options. I will be opted-out by default unless I choose I want to be opt-in. I will have more tight control over shared entities as well. If my ex tagged me in his/her pictures and then we are unfriended, then I would still have the option to go through his/her pictures and choose to remove myself (I think FB allows this currently anyway). Basically the contract b/w me and FB will be iron clad.
obblekk 8y ago
I hear this sentiment a lot. Here's why it doesn't work: If facebook sets the price at $20/mo for no ads no tracking, most of the people who can afford that actually generate more than $20/mo of ARPU for facebook with ads. So they get this adverse selection where mostly only the wealthy (highly valuable advertising targets) opt out of ads and this eventually decreases FB's revenue. If they raised the price to offset this, the adverse selection would get even stronger. The flip side of this is that Netflix could almost certainly make more money if they showed interstitial video ads, because this allows them to effectively make more money off wealthier people (because advertisers pay more to advertise to them).
- Rjevski 8y ago
  > most of the people who can afford that actually generate more than $20/mo of ARPU for facebook with ads How so? I’ve never clicked on an ad other than by accident, and I actively despise any brand that tried to push me their garbage via ads. I’m not sure I ageee with you there. I’d say most people who can afford that are actually making Facebook less money because they’re smart enough to see through the bullshit and ignore the ads.

foepys 8y ago

How would that work? You would need an account to pay them and also need to be logged in for everything. Tracking you is so much easier then.

CodeSheikh 8y ago
They way I use Facebook and the kind of information I have shared with it (photos, places, connections) I have already established a valid identity with them. I don't use Facebook as some anon profile "LonelyGirl99". By paying them a premium fee Facebook and I would bind into a new agreement about not persisting my information for ad tracking and wherever possible ask its third party affiliates to do the same. Say you and I are both logged in and actively commenting on TechCrunch. You are a free user and I pay premium. TechCrunch can request FB to have metrics for free users but not for premium. Unless FB provides a backdoor, has a bug or TechCrunch savvy programmers can hack FB social plugin to extract info about premium users as well. Similarly, FB will also not sell my meta-data to advertisers. Even if I fall well into the targeting of advertisers I will be excluded. FB will not even give me "opt-out" options. I will be opted-out by default unless I choose I want to be opt-in. I will have more tight control over shared entities as well. If my ex tagged me in his/her pictures and then we are unfriended, then I would still have the option to go through his/her pictures and choose to remove myself (I think FB allows this currently anyway). Basically the contract b/w me and FB will be iron clad.

obblekk 8y ago

I hear this sentiment a lot. Here's why it doesn't work: If facebook sets the price at $20/mo for no ads no tracking, most of the people who can afford that actually generate more than $20/mo of ARPU for facebook with ads. So they get this adverse selection where mostly only the wealthy (highly valuable advertising targets) opt out of ads and this eventually decreases FB's revenue. If they raised the price to offset this, the adverse selection would get even stronger. The flip side of this is that Netflix could almost certainly make more money if they showed interstitial video ads, because this allows them to effectively make more money off wealthier people (because advertisers pay more to advertise to them).

Rjevski 8y ago
> most of the people who can afford that actually generate more than $20/mo of ARPU for facebook with ads How so? I’ve never clicked on an ad other than by accident, and I actively despise any brand that tried to push me their garbage via ads. I’m not sure I ageee with you there. I’d say most people who can afford that are actually making Facebook less money because they’re smart enough to see through the bullshit and ignore the ads.