(I work for Ning) It can take a huge amount of effort to build a social networking site. It can, also, take no perceived effort on the part of the person setti

(I work for Ning) It can take a huge amount of effort to build a social networking site. It can, also, take no perceived effort on the part of the person setting it up. You need to separate out the "I am building this for profit and see it as work" and "I am looking for a place on the interwebs which lets me interact with people in this way" -- we support both, and other, models. If we can find a way to make it even easier on the part of network creators, in terms of setting it up, building a community, etc, we will do it. If you build up a profit or brand oriented network, you should probably consider running your own ads on it, you can do that (we then charge you, a small amount, for actually hosting it). If you want a private SNS for your family and friends, boy scout troop, class, conference, user group, or any of the almost infinite reasons people want it, then the free model (where we run adds and hope to profit) may fit you best. In the model you describe, the lack of compensation to the network builder is purely monetary. We provide goods (albeit virtual), support for those goods, and a continuous stream of improvements on those goods :-)