4 ms·

Man, I wish Facebook would just charge $25 a year and then focus on making the actual user the customer, rather than making the end user the product and adverti

Man, I wish Facebook would just charge $25 a year and then focus on making the actual user the customer, rather than making the end user the product and advertisers the customer. If they did that, there would be no more advertising, no more creepy selling of personal data, no more spamming my feed with "Susie likes Walmart" messages. On the plus side, if they fail to make the end user the customer, maybe a business opportunity will open up for someone to create a social network that isn't evil ...

ryanwaggoner 14y ago
No one (or close enough to make no difference) would pay. Seriously, people may complain about ads but they have almost always proven that they prefer ads to paying, hence the reason the vast majority of media channels (tv, print, web, etc) are free with ads, or cheap and ad-subsidized. And not having 80-99% of people I want to friend (because they dont want to pay) would be death for a social network.
- Estragon 14y ago
  Now you mention it, it's kind of surprising that they don't offer premium accounts with no ads and strong privacy guarantees. I might even get back on facebook if they did that.
  - ryanwaggoner 14y ago
    Selling both of those benefits draws a lot of attention to the fact that Facebook is making money from selling your attention and your data.
  - bishnu 14y ago
    The problem with this is the people buying premium accounts are precisely the people advertisers are trying to target.
- jrockway 14y ago
  Why do most people pay for cable when the free channels provide more than enough content to occupy their time?
  - ryanwaggoner 14y ago
    The majority of cable channels still have tons of advertising; consumers are paying for the channel, but I doubt the subscription fees are the majority of the revenue for the channel. Regardless, it's a very different issue if your core value proposition is "using this is super useful and awesome because everyone you know is also using it". What would be the optimal pricing model for a TV network that was exponentially more enjoyable the more people were watching it? $0.
    - jrockway 14y ago
      Doesn't matter. Even if the cable companies simply exchange your money for one dollar bills and burn them, you're still giving them money. So it stands to reason that if you can get people used to paying for individual online services (like they do for HBO on their cable), then it is not required that things be ad supported anymore. I think the reason things are ad supported is because making money from advertising is really simply. You need one person at your organization to call an advertiser, and a day of his work can give you millions in instant cash. Customers, on the other hand, require a lot more maintenance and generate less money per individual, so scaling up a business based on customers paying money is very difficult. (Even Microsoft, a huge company that sells software, prefers to get OEMs to buy you a Windows license. One deal with one OEM equals millions of dollars. One deal with you equals $39.)
      - ryanwaggoner 14y ago
        So it stands to reason that if you can get people used to paying for individual online services (like they do for HBO on their cable), then it is not required that things be ad supported anymore. Advertising isn't required; lots of services do fine without it, even some free ones that make money through other methods. I'm just saying that in general people seem to prefer paying with their attention to paying with their cash. If you can somehow shift that balance, then yes, advertising could go away. But I don't think that will ever happen, because people just don't value their attention and time like they do their cash. I think it's a side effect of human nature somehow.
- bokonist 14y ago
  The freeness of tv is a relic of the broadcast era when it was impossible to charge for TV usage. People now pay for cable, and people long paid for print. People also pay for iphone apps. I think the freeness of the web is due to an accident/stupidity of the web browser creators in not building an easy, automatic payment system into the web browser itself, thus creating a considerable penny-gap problem.
  - fpgeek 14y ago
    People don't really pay for print. Generally speaking, the fee that most print publications charge is more about qualifying their readers for advertisers (e.g. people who will pay money to read about X) than anything else. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/magazine/16Journalism-t.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/magazine/16Journalism-t.ht... "Advertising always accounted for the vast majority of the publishers’ revenues — with newspapers, 80 percent was the rule of thumb"
  - ryanwaggoner 14y ago
    Not sure who down-voted you, because while I generally disagree, you make a really good point...why the hell haven't browser makers built an integrated payments platform? They're probably better positioned than almost anyone to do so, and it would instantly turn all Safari, Chrome, and IE from weird strategic products into cash machines. And it would free Firefox from relying on the search engines for their revenue.
advisore 14y ago
And why do you think they do not do that? Because someone else would offer a free alternative. Facebook is doomed as a business. They've had over eight years to find a novel business model that won't drive users away and they still do not have one. They are walking a tightrope. Let's just hope that when the company goes South the data does not fall into the wrong hands. Spam could get a lot worse. Imagine direct marketers knowing all your friends and family, plus all sorts of personal details about you. Imagine all the desperate salespeople who have no reluctance to make cold calls that would love to get their hands on Facebook data.

ryanwaggoner 14y ago

No one (or close enough to make no difference) would pay. Seriously, people may complain about ads but they have almost always proven that they prefer ads to paying, hence the reason the vast majority of media channels (tv, print, web, etc) are free with ads, or cheap and ad-subsidized. And not having 80-99% of people I want to friend (because they dont want to pay) would be death for a social network.

Estragon 14y ago
Now you mention it, it's kind of surprising that they don't offer premium accounts with no ads and strong privacy guarantees. I might even get back on facebook if they did that.
- ryanwaggoner 14y ago
  Selling both of those benefits draws a lot of attention to the fact that Facebook is making money from selling your attention and your data.
- bishnu 14y ago
  The problem with this is the people buying premium accounts are precisely the people advertisers are trying to target.
jrockway 14y ago
Why do most people pay for cable when the free channels provide more than enough content to occupy their time?
- ryanwaggoner 14y ago
  The majority of cable channels still have tons of advertising; consumers are paying for the channel, but I doubt the subscription fees are the majority of the revenue for the channel. Regardless, it's a very different issue if your core value proposition is "using this is super useful and awesome because everyone you know is also using it". What would be the optimal pricing model for a TV network that was exponentially more enjoyable the more people were watching it? $0.
  - jrockway 14y ago
    Doesn't matter. Even if the cable companies simply exchange your money for one dollar bills and burn them, you're still giving them money. So it stands to reason that if you can get people used to paying for individual online services (like they do for HBO on their cable), then it is not required that things be ad supported anymore. I think the reason things are ad supported is because making money from advertising is really simply. You need one person at your organization to call an advertiser, and a day of his work can give you millions in instant cash. Customers, on the other hand, require a lot more maintenance and generate less money per individual, so scaling up a business based on customers paying money is very difficult. (Even Microsoft, a huge company that sells software, prefers to get OEMs to buy you a Windows license. One deal with one OEM equals millions of dollars. One deal with you equals $39.)
    - ryanwaggoner 14y ago
      So it stands to reason that if you can get people used to paying for individual online services (like they do for HBO on their cable), then it is not required that things be ad supported anymore. Advertising isn't required; lots of services do fine without it, even some free ones that make money through other methods. I'm just saying that in general people seem to prefer paying with their attention to paying with their cash. If you can somehow shift that balance, then yes, advertising could go away. But I don't think that will ever happen, because people just don't value their attention and time like they do their cash. I think it's a side effect of human nature somehow.
bokonist 14y ago
The freeness of tv is a relic of the broadcast era when it was impossible to charge for TV usage. People now pay for cable, and people long paid for print. People also pay for iphone apps. I think the freeness of the web is due to an accident/stupidity of the web browser creators in not building an easy, automatic payment system into the web browser itself, thus creating a considerable penny-gap problem.
- fpgeek 14y ago
  People don't really pay for print. Generally speaking, the fee that most print publications charge is more about qualifying their readers for advertisers (e.g. people who will pay money to read about X) than anything else. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/magazine/16Journalism-t.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/magazine/16Journalism-t.ht... "Advertising always accounted for the vast majority of the publishers’ revenues — with newspapers, 80 percent was the rule of thumb"
- ryanwaggoner 14y ago
  Not sure who down-voted you, because while I generally disagree, you make a really good point...why the hell haven't browser makers built an integrated payments platform? They're probably better positioned than almost anyone to do so, and it would instantly turn all Safari, Chrome, and IE from weird strategic products into cash machines. And it would free Firefox from relying on the search engines for their revenue.

advisore 14y ago

And why do you think they do not do that? Because someone else would offer a free alternative. Facebook is doomed as a business. They've had over eight years to find a novel business model that won't drive users away and they still do not have one. They are walking a tightrope. Let's just hope that when the company goes South the data does not fall into the wrong hands. Spam could get a lot worse. Imagine direct marketers knowing all your friends and family, plus all sorts of personal details about you. Imagine all the desperate salespeople who have no reluctance to make cold calls that would love to get their hands on Facebook data.