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Comment by chadp | Hacker News Reader

facebook has 500 million users and is likely on their way to one billion. is it possible for them NOT to be hugely profitable with 1 BILLION users?

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Not a comment on FB's specific situation, but that's a bit like saying "I'll sell widgets at a loss and make up for it in volume, I can't possibly lose".

The only problem is that you are assuming continual growth. While they are the cool place to be now, as soon as the become the uncool place to be, then they will be screwed.

If I was facebook, I would be very afraid of this happening. I understand facebook has some patents on the news feed an other minor aspects of facebook, but their basic feature set is somewhat small, but reproducible.

I think that any social platform faces the problem, that people will jump ship to what ever they think is cooler. Look at Myspace, that was hugely popular and suddenly it become the uncool place to be and then everyone and their moms, jumped ship to facebook. History is bound to repeat itself.

yes possible that people will jump ship for the next coolest thing. will everyones moms, dads and grandparents really want to "recreate" their social network and learn a new platform though?

facebook is unique as they are the biggest game in the world with people's real names and real social connections.

As the consumers become more tech-savvy (old dogs can learn new tricks) and technologies become easier to use, it will be easier for them to switch service. All it takes is the influential people to move (think celebrities, popular friend, active family member, etc) for the others to follow.

Yes of course it is possible and will get easier to transfer services. Question is will the 500MM users do it en-masse? FB would have to screw up pretty big for that to happen in the next 3-5 years, in which time, it MAY be possible to build an enormous multi-billion dollar (or even deca-billion $$) per year profit stream.

Before facebook, people thought their email was their online identity, they had all their friend and relatives in their contacts, why bother register on facebook to recreate all that?

500 million users and many use it on a daily basis and spend more time on the site than most others.

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