4 ms·

I seriously doubt that 'millions of dollars a month to run' price-tag. There are alternative, even superior open source software solutions. The only cost are t

by ekr 12y ago

I seriously doubt that 'millions of dollars a month to run' price-tag. There are alternative, even superior open source software solutions. The only cost are the servers, but certainly, even with facebook's traffic, a well built stack could run on not more than a dozen. So I'd imagine facebook could be run on a few thousands of dollars a month, certainly the costs shouldn't be that much higher than wikipedia's. The only thing that's valuable in facebook, and hard to replace, is the user-base, which was won through heavy marketing, and having a more attractive product at a critical stage (more attractive =/= technically superior).

stingraycharles 12y ago
Huh what? Are you really suggesting facebook could be run on a few dozen servers, or are you just trolling?
- yuvadam 12y ago
  Not centrally, no. But many existing P2P networks prove that you do not need massive data centers to hoard everyone's data. You can use the collaborative effort of humanities existing computation devices. Decentralize all the things.
  - stingraycharles 12y ago
    That was not the point he was making -- he was making the point that "even with facebook's amount of traffic, you could host it on a dozen servers". That is just so far detached from reality I cannot take that seriously. I agree that p2p social networks are an interesting alternative, but they are a whole different kind of product and a kind of apples / oranges comparison in terms of cost of operation.
  - gnopgnip 12y ago
    Decentralization is less efficient. Instead of each piece of information being copied in a few place it would need to be copied to hundreds or thousands with a decentralized system.
DangerousPie 12y ago
According to this [1] Facebook has multiple data centers with around 60,000 servers as of 2010, probably a lot more now. If you know how to do the same thing with a dozen servers, I am sure they'd love to hire you! [1] http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/the-facebook-data-center-faq-page-2/ http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/the-facebook-data-center-...
- V-2 12y ago
  Okay, 60,000 servers - for 1.23 billion active users. That's less than 0.0005 server per user. Facebook as such may cost millions to run of course, but the price they pay to keep your account active is so negligible that you're essentially selling your data for peanuts.
- jarcane 12y ago
  In fairness, while I think the previous comment is a bit clueless myself, I'm inclined to ask how many of those servers would be necessary if FB wasn't logging so very much data on everyone. If FB's job was once again just to show me my fucking posts, instead of building the most complete profile of a human being in the history of mankind so that it can sell me out to governments and corporations, it seems to me the data load would be a lot lighter.
  - unicornporn 12y ago
    > I'm inclined to ask how many of those servers would be necessary if FB wasn't logging so very much data on everyone. Hmm, but that's how they make money. They log, they analyze, they show you ads and they sell your data.
    - sp332 12y ago
      I doubt they really sell your data. The only way advertisers can get info about you is if you click through an ad. Edit: So downvoters, how do I buy data about Facebook users?
      - 12y ago
harel 12y ago
I apologise in advance for the sarcastic tone (I could not help myself): If you can run Facebook at Facebook's scale with no more than a dozen servers, I'm going to hire you for my next project because man, that would be something! I suggest you send a CV to Google because they are running an even bigger scale than Facebook and if you can dilute them to say 100 servers - its a win! Facebook's infra is unique. If it was built today it might have been different but it would still run on MANY servers across MANY geographical locations. It would still cost millions to run every month. This is why companies like Google are building data centres. Its cheaper for them in the long run to own the infra from the ground up, literally (i.e., owning the actual land the DC is on).
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

by ekr 12y ago

stingraycharles 12y ago

Huh what? Are you really suggesting facebook could be run on a few dozen servers, or are you just trolling?

yuvadam 12y ago
Not centrally, no. But many existing P2P networks prove that you do not need massive data centers to hoard everyone's data. You can use the collaborative effort of humanities existing computation devices. Decentralize all the things.
- stingraycharles 12y ago
  That was not the point he was making -- he was making the point that "even with facebook's amount of traffic, you could host it on a dozen servers". That is just so far detached from reality I cannot take that seriously. I agree that p2p social networks are an interesting alternative, but they are a whole different kind of product and a kind of apples / oranges comparison in terms of cost of operation.
- gnopgnip 12y ago
  Decentralization is less efficient. Instead of each piece of information being copied in a few place it would need to be copied to hundreds or thousands with a decentralized system.

DangerousPie 12y ago

According to this [1] Facebook has multiple data centers with around 60,000 servers as of 2010, probably a lot more now. If you know how to do the same thing with a dozen servers, I am sure they'd love to hire you! [1] http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/the-facebook-data-center-faq-page-2/ http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/the-facebook-data-center-...

V-2 12y ago
Okay, 60,000 servers - for 1.23 billion active users. That's less than 0.0005 server per user. Facebook as such may cost millions to run of course, but the price they pay to keep your account active is so negligible that you're essentially selling your data for peanuts.
jarcane 12y ago
In fairness, while I think the previous comment is a bit clueless myself, I'm inclined to ask how many of those servers would be necessary if FB wasn't logging so very much data on everyone. If FB's job was once again just to show me my fucking posts, instead of building the most complete profile of a human being in the history of mankind so that it can sell me out to governments and corporations, it seems to me the data load would be a lot lighter.
- unicornporn 12y ago
  > I'm inclined to ask how many of those servers would be necessary if FB wasn't logging so very much data on everyone. Hmm, but that's how they make money. They log, they analyze, they show you ads and they sell your data.
  - sp332 12y ago
    I doubt they really sell your data. The only way advertisers can get info about you is if you click through an ad. Edit: So downvoters, how do I buy data about Facebook users?
    - 12y ago

harel 12y ago

I apologise in advance for the sarcastic tone (I could not help myself): If you can run Facebook at Facebook's scale with no more than a dozen servers, I'm going to hire you for my next project because man, that would be something! I suggest you send a CV to Google because they are running an even bigger scale than Facebook and if you can dilute them to say 100 servers - its a win! Facebook's infra is unique. If it was built today it might have been different but it would still run on MANY servers across MANY geographical locations. It would still cost millions to run every month. This is why companies like Google are building data centres. Its cheaper for them in the long run to own the infra from the ground up, literally (i.e., owning the actual land the DC is on).

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]