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That would at the very least, mean that users would pay a fee to use their product. As of now, as a free product that is the only way to monetize. The internet

That would at the very least, mean that users would pay a fee to use their product. As of now, as a free product that is the only way to monetize. The internet loves it's free, open products but at the same time, ironically, loves to build products whose founders are billionaires and even raises them to near hero status. It culminates in the users having a pretty terrible experience in the way of manipulation and privacy.

phil248 8y ago
Really though? Advertising supported multi-billion dollar industries for decades without mining our personal info. Just because they can doesn't mean they have to. If companies want to advertise to Facebook's hundreds of millions of users, they will do so without targeting if that's their only option.
jonas21 8y ago
And, if your friends are anything like mine, only a small fraction would be willing to pay, making it a pretty lousy social network.
kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
Commercial radio and broadcast television worked without fine grained metrics on the users. There's nothing special about the internet that makes invasive tracking a necessity.
- floatrock 8y ago
  "Worked." How are they doing now? It's a cats-outta-the-bag situation. What DOES makes invasive tracking a necessity is it works so much better than the free models that came before it. If you're not doing it, your competition is, and they're getting one up on you. I don't think we have a free model that monetizes more efficiently than invasive tracking, so the only option you're left with is a not-free model. And for consumer-social, "not free" is a small niche (eharmony comes to mind as making it work, but even they bought all the free dating companies because the free ones were eating the market...)
WilliamEdward 8y ago
"at the very least"? No i think the third option is having an advertisement model that simply feeds users ads without having to abuse their data for 'optimization'.
sveme 8y ago
Why can‘t ads (again) be targeted to content and not users? If I‘m reading an article on a Tesla I might be interested in what VW is offering instead - and might not be interested in that headset I looked at a week ago.
jacobush 8y ago
Or they'd have to run the software on their own machines.

phil248 8y ago

Really though? Advertising supported multi-billion dollar industries for decades without mining our personal info. Just because they can doesn't mean they have to. If companies want to advertise to Facebook's hundreds of millions of users, they will do so without targeting if that's their only option.

jonas21 8y ago

And, if your friends are anything like mine, only a small fraction would be willing to pay, making it a pretty lousy social network.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

Commercial radio and broadcast television worked without fine grained metrics on the users. There's nothing special about the internet that makes invasive tracking a necessity.

floatrock 8y ago
"Worked." How are they doing now? It's a cats-outta-the-bag situation. What DOES makes invasive tracking a necessity is it works so much better than the free models that came before it. If you're not doing it, your competition is, and they're getting one up on you. I don't think we have a free model that monetizes more efficiently than invasive tracking, so the only option you're left with is a not-free model. And for consumer-social, "not free" is a small niche (eharmony comes to mind as making it work, but even they bought all the free dating companies because the free ones were eating the market...)

WilliamEdward 8y ago

"at the very least"? No i think the third option is having an advertisement model that simply feeds users ads without having to abuse their data for 'optimization'.

sveme 8y ago

Why can‘t ads (again) be targeted to content and not users? If I‘m reading an article on a Tesla I might be interested in what VW is offering instead - and might not be interested in that headset I looked at a week ago.

jacobush 8y ago

Or they'd have to run the software on their own machines.