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It seems so weird that we all happily pay $5 or $10 a month for a bunch of random services, but a central platform like Facebook or Twitter can't even charge a

It seems so weird that we all happily pay $5 or $10 a month for a bunch of random services, but a central platform like Facebook or Twitter can't even charge a buck?

dimva 4y ago
You pay for services where there isn't a network effect (streaming) or where the market isn't super competitive (telecom). Social is an incredibly competitive market with a huge network effect - if Facebook or Twitter charged money, young users would migrate somewhere else and would continue using that network when they got older. So that would be the end of any social network that decided to charge, unless it was trying to be a small niche network for adults to have more intellectual conversations (metafilter?)
lbriner 4y ago
There is the network effect where to make it worthwhile, you need to have pretty much all of your friends on it, if not, it doesn't work. Most people won't pay for anything they don't have to pay for. There is also the fact that it can be hard to see the overall gain when each interaction is very marginal. For example, updating your timeline with a photo and a status by itself doesn't seem worth paying for even if the cummulative effect over an entire year could be very beneficial for your networks.
- bluGill 4y ago
  Facebook might be valuable enough for me to pay for, but it is marginal. For every friend who decides to get off facebook the value of facebook also goes down. I wouldn't pay more than a buck/month for facebook, and to get that they need to focus on the things that provide me value (that is they need to show me more about the life of my friends and cut all the memes and political garbage that my friends share). However I never would have joined facebook if there was a price and for years after I wouldn't have been willing to pay, it is only now that I realize the ability to share pictures of my kids with my parents and other friends is a valuable service.
  - lukasyuy5 4y ago
pjc50 4y ago
Customers are funny like that. My own personal gimmick ideas for twitter, that will never be tried, would be "premium" which gives you abuse reporting that actually works (and maybe some other stuff), and a system to enable people to pay for premium (or part thereof) for other users.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

It seems so weird that we all happily pay $5 or $10 a month for a bunch of random services, but a central platform like Facebook or Twitter can't even charge a buck?

dimva 4y ago

You pay for services where there isn't a network effect (streaming) or where the market isn't super competitive (telecom). Social is an incredibly competitive market with a huge network effect - if Facebook or Twitter charged money, young users would migrate somewhere else and would continue using that network when they got older. So that would be the end of any social network that decided to charge, unless it was trying to be a small niche network for adults to have more intellectual conversations (metafilter?)

lbriner 4y ago

There is the network effect where to make it worthwhile, you need to have pretty much all of your friends on it, if not, it doesn't work. Most people won't pay for anything they don't have to pay for. There is also the fact that it can be hard to see the overall gain when each interaction is very marginal. For example, updating your timeline with a photo and a status by itself doesn't seem worth paying for even if the cummulative effect over an entire year could be very beneficial for your networks.

bluGill 4y ago
Facebook might be valuable enough for me to pay for, but it is marginal. For every friend who decides to get off facebook the value of facebook also goes down. I wouldn't pay more than a buck/month for facebook, and to get that they need to focus on the things that provide me value (that is they need to show me more about the life of my friends and cut all the memes and political garbage that my friends share). However I never would have joined facebook if there was a price and for years after I wouldn't have been willing to pay, it is only now that I realize the ability to share pictures of my kids with my parents and other friends is a valuable service.
- lukasyuy5 4y ago

pjc50 4y ago

Customers are funny like that. My own personal gimmick ideas for twitter, that will never be tried, would be "premium" which gives you abuse reporting that actually works (and maybe some other stuff), and a system to enable people to pay for premium (or part thereof) for other users.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]