5 ms·

This is a great article... you think facebook will ever charge us to keep our profiles?

mdasen 18y ago
No. Social networks are worthless without a large volume of users (or a critical mass in a niche). Charging money cuts down on the number of users and lowers the value of the network. Plus, people would just go to providers who didn't charge money - who either found a way to monetize effectively like LinkedIn or a new contender who is simply naive and has no business plan as well, but will offer free everything in the meantime.
- petergroverman 18y ago
  Truth be it told... I'd pay $9.95 a month in order to KEEP my FaceBook account. I WILL NEVER RECREATE THE CONNECTIONS and tag all the photos and 'start over.' I'd pay $ no question to keep my account from eternal deletion.
  - steveplace 18y ago
    That may work but could you imagine the total backlash from their user base? There would be no way for them to reestablish trust, and without that trust it becomes very improbable that you will be able to mine out new revenue streams.
  - mdasen 18y ago
    OK, you will never recreate that friend network and re-upload and tag all those photos. You will pay $10/mo to keep your profile alive. However, what happens when your friends decide, "screw this, I'm out"? All of a sudden, those connections that you were paying for aren't there anymore. At best, I'd say Facebook could get 50% of its users to pay for its service. Once half of those connections are gone, the service isn't worth as much to you. Likewise, as users leave, so do their photos. Again, you're in a situation where Facebook's value is being lowered for you. That's what's so hard about pricing. Facebook is worth $10/mo to you. It isn't worth that much to others. However, it's only worth $10 to you because of the other people on it (many of whom wouldn't pay that). Which means that if Facebook starts charging money, suddenly it isn't worth $10 to you because much of the content from other users (their profiles, your connections to them, their photos) is gone. There's a critical mass issue. Even if you say something like, "well, they could charge for premium stuff like the ability to say who gets to see your profile" which is free now. In that case, lots of users won't post content as freely and the service looses some amount of its value. So, Facebook really doesn't have the opportunity to charge people because once it does, the value goes down as the more marginal users are no longer there.
ralphc 18y ago
No. I don't know percentages, but I'm guessing a majority of their users, especially the ones hitting it a lot, are college students, who are generally poor, and high-schoolers, which don't have credit cards and won't get money out of their parents to get on a site to complain about their parents. As soon as they charge these groups will go somewhere else as quickly as they came to Facebook.

No. Social networks are worthless without a large volume of users (or a critical mass in a niche). Charging money cuts down on the number of users and lowers the value of the network. Plus, people would just go to providers who didn't charge money - who either found a way to monetize effectively like LinkedIn or a new contender who is simply naive and has no business plan as well, but will offer free everything in the meantime.

petergroverman 18y ago
Truth be it told... I'd pay $9.95 a month in order to KEEP my FaceBook account. I WILL NEVER RECREATE THE CONNECTIONS and tag all the photos and 'start over.' I'd pay $ no question to keep my account from eternal deletion.
- steveplace 18y ago
  That may work but could you imagine the total backlash from their user base? There would be no way for them to reestablish trust, and without that trust it becomes very improbable that you will be able to mine out new revenue streams.
- mdasen 18y ago
  OK, you will never recreate that friend network and re-upload and tag all those photos. You will pay $10/mo to keep your profile alive. However, what happens when your friends decide, "screw this, I'm out"? All of a sudden, those connections that you were paying for aren't there anymore. At best, I'd say Facebook could get 50% of its users to pay for its service. Once half of those connections are gone, the service isn't worth as much to you. Likewise, as users leave, so do their photos. Again, you're in a situation where Facebook's value is being lowered for you. That's what's so hard about pricing. Facebook is worth $10/mo to you. It isn't worth that much to others. However, it's only worth $10 to you because of the other people on it (many of whom wouldn't pay that). Which means that if Facebook starts charging money, suddenly it isn't worth $10 to you because much of the content from other users (their profiles, your connections to them, their photos) is gone. There's a critical mass issue. Even if you say something like, "well, they could charge for premium stuff like the ability to say who gets to see your profile" which is free now. In that case, lots of users won't post content as freely and the service looses some amount of its value. So, Facebook really doesn't have the opportunity to charge people because once it does, the value goes down as the more marginal users are no longer there.

ralphc 18y ago

No. I don't know percentages, but I'm guessing a majority of their users, especially the ones hitting it a lot, are college students, who are generally poor, and high-schoolers, which don't have credit cards and won't get money out of their parents to get on a site to complain about their parents. As soon as they charge these groups will go somewhere else as quickly as they came to Facebook.