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So wait... In the US, my "value" to facebook is about $100 a year? (~24/q rounded up) Can I subscribe to facebook and opt out of all advertising and any data s
by scolson 8y ago
So wait... In the US, my "value" to facebook is about $100 a year? (~24/q rounded up)
Can I subscribe to facebook and opt out of all advertising and any data sharing exposure with third-parties? That is totally worth $8-10/mo to me.
Edit: I get it. You don't like this idea, or you don't think it will work, or you don't think facebook's investors will like it (full disclosure: I am one). Why on earth should that stop me from putting my obviously flawed opinion out there that I am sick of being the product and I'd love to opt out of that process?
- bertil 8y agoI don’t think you risk much data exposure now. That’s, assuming that you are not using AirBnB, Uber or Tinder.
- pkaye 8y agoThe problem for Facebook is that it is really not worth that much for many users. Even if they charge $10/year many would dump it.
- scolson 8y agoI get many/most prefer to be the product than the customer. I, however, would love the option to switch.
- kgwgk 8y agoHave you also considered that the users who would love the option to switch for $100 may be worth much more to them?
- pkaye 8y agoI guess it wouldn't hurt to give options. I think Google has given this option for their ad network... I wonder how many people subscribe to that.
- scolson 8y agoTo the best of my understanding, you can opt out of personalized ads with google, but not all ads. At least for the search product. For email, one can pay for their google apps tier, which doesn't have ads, but it is obviously targeted to business users, so the value prop is completely different anyway.
- JetSpiegel 8y ago> To the best of my understanding, you can opt out of personalized ads with google, but not all ads. At least for the search product. You can install uBlock Origin in all your devices.
- scolson 8y agoOne of these things is not like the other...
- zitterbewegung 8y agoWhat if you could sell the data to a third party for $10+ dollars? (I’m working on a project to do this ) Also, you would need your friends to opt out too? Or at least turn on timeline review. It seems paradoxical to share your information and also require it to be private .
- scolson 8y agoPersonally, I would not sell access to my data. Re friends opting out, no, you would just need the system to exclude individuals who have the opt-out attribute from the graph search. But I do also have timeline review turned on and have for years. I get that I am probably a minority user of Facebook, in that I have very customized security and privacy settings. To me, there has always been value in choosing with whom to share certain information. It isn't a global binary function.
- zitterbewegung 8y agoMy reasoning about the opt-out attribute not being followed would be if you are friends with someone else and they share information about you wouldn't you want that information to be private? Or would you just prefer to use the timeline review feature for all of your friends content that they would share. What if you weren't tagged properly also and your friends share information about you? Then hypothetically your information would be available on Facebook. Thanks for answering my questions!
- cryptoz 8y agoI don't think that's what that number means. If you paid that value in dollars, then Facebooks revenue-tie-to-network effects is gone. Facebook currently has the ability to 'innovate' on the data you provide and presumably convince investors that the value will rise over time due to Facebook's own engineering talent. On the other hand, if you are paying a flat fee, the entirety of Facebook's business model falls flat - that it can increase that value without you knowing. Could Facebook survive a price increase from subscriptions at $10/month to $100/month? Probably not. Could Facebook engineer another 10x return on your data? Probably. So no, you can't subscribe. It wouldn't work.
- bvod 8y agoThe problem is that the rev/user isn't constant. If they get more users, they earn more from each user. And conversely, if they lose users, they earn less from everyone. So even if a small percentage of their users opted to pay monthly, that would have a negative impact on facebook's earnings on the remaining population.
- paxys 8y agoExactly. An individual user isn't worth a lot, the network is.
- rconti 8y agoFunny, my only problem with this comment is the edit itself.
- Trundle 8y agoYeah I can't see anyone saying he can't put his opinion out there.
- malvosenior 8y ago> I am sick of being the product and I'd love to opt out of that process You can opt out. Don't use Facebook.
- vvanders 8y agoThat's only possible once shadow profiles no longer exist.
- matte_black 8y agoDon’t worry about shadow profiles. CCTV cameras already document you just fine.
- fghtr 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism Edit: Although other problems indeed exist, it does not mean that this particular problem is not important.
- matte_black 8y agoWith privacy, unless you solve all the problems you’re just cutting heads off a hydra.
- basementcat 8y agoI'd flip it around. What if Facebook paid me $$ to use it? Perhaps they could have different incentive tiers in exchange for sharing additional info.
- komali2 8y agoI thought that was the end game originally - reward users with cash for self providing information companies usually need to pay survey companies to get.
- oedenfield 8y agoWhy pay users when they give it to you for free?
- lotsofpulp 8y agoWhy does Facebook spend money on employees then?
- JimmyAustin 8y agoPresumably Facebook employees would work else where if they weren't paid.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoMy point was that what people aren't giving their info to Facebook for free, Facebook has to spend money on their employees to create something which people then want to use resulting in them getting information.
- riazrizvi 8y agoThey do pay you ... in kind. They built a way to share photos, send messages, etc etc
- carbocation 8y agoSince you are willing to pay $100/year not to see ads, you are probably the sort of person who is worth much more than $100/year to Facebook and its advertisers.
- aylmao 8y agoWait, care to elaborate? I'd assume it's the other way around; people who don't want to see ads are probably less likely to click on them and drive revenue, no?
- askl56 8y agoHe's in a financial position to afford $10 a month for the relative luxury of not being served ads, meaning he has a relatively large disposable income, meaning he's the kind of person I would want to advertise to.
- aylmao 8y agoAh gotcha, yeah that makes sense.
- RandomBK 8y agoIn addition, his disposition for avoiding ads likely means he is running ad blocking, and thus already minimizing his ad exposure. This presents a less crowded field where any ads he does see may have a larger impact on his buying behavior.
- acchow 8y agoYour "value" to facebook is going up at 25% per year. In 5 years, it should be $24-30/month
- robotresearcher 8y agoAnd in 50 years it should be $2.3M/month. Unless this growth isn't sustainable...
- acchow 8y agoIt won't sustain 25% annual growth for 50 years. But the advertising market is enormous (see Google's growth in the past 5 years) and Facebook has a lot of room to grow its share.
- geodel 8y agoWell I think about 50-100 million users in world would be looking to have paid account. Since those are valuable customers who would definitely not want to have invasive, tracking advertisements and advertisers definitely want to target them. The only way it would work is if FB totally does away with advertising. With current numbers the way it could work is if those users make annual commitment of at least 500-1000 USD or 200-400 dollars / quarter. So the users with loud ethical voice and concerns about negative affects of advertising can save the world from this whole tracking business by committing about 1000 dollars a year.
- TwoBit 8y agoFeel free to start your own Facebook clone and charge $100 a year for no ads and see how successful that is.
- brisance 8y agoAs ridiculous as that sounds, does it really cost $100 per user per year to build a Facebook clone?