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Comment by jliptzin | Hacker News Reader

If they can’t manage to charge $1 per user per month for their service then perhaps their service isn’t worth anything at all.

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I am all for bashing Facebook, but comments like this don't help us come across as thoughtful in our criticism. The question is not if they could run their business with an ARPU of $1.00, but instead why would they do so if they are able to achieve an ARPU of $39.63 (Q3 2020).

Most companies in this world choose not to willingly leave money on the table, and Facebook is simply taking the same position as millions of other businesses. The only way to get them to earn less than they could is by forcing them to do so through market forces (eg: iOS 14) or regulation.

I would be happy to pay $39.63 to remove ads and allow me to browse FB without all my usage history and personal info getting sold to the highest bidder, but they don’t even give that option. So, I hardly ever use it.

By that logic, is Wikipedia perhaps not worth anything at all? Monthly user subscriptions is not the only way to determine value.

Wikipedia is supported entirely by donations. I would hazard a guess that people who donate to Wikipedia consider it to be worth the money they choose to donate, and more.

So, mostly worthless to the overwhelming majority of people who don't donate, and even more who donate less than the equivalent of $1/user/month? I'm aware that Wikipedia is supported by donations, that doesn't change the fact that Wikipedia is immensely valuable to many people even though they apparently can't manage to charge $1 per user per month for their service. In many ways, Wikipedia is so valuable because they don't charge their users.

A lot of people in Canada don't pay anything for their health care and don't pay taxes either because they don't earn any income. I don't think it is reasonable to suggest these people think their health care is "worthless."

The mistake here is conflating price with value. The price people are willing to pay is relative to their means. The value, on the other hand, is relative to the utility they derive from it. Moreover, there is an additional external utility accrued to society from having a better educated, healthier population.

> I don't think it is reasonable to suggest these people think their health care is "worthless."

That was literally OP's point.

Sure, that's exactly my point, I don't think it's reasonable to suggest that Facebook is worthless because they won't or can't charge their users just like healthcare isn't worthless because many people don't directly pay for it.

Then all (citation needed) search engines are not worth, as they are free. HN and wikipedia are also completely worthless.

Tell that to FB and Linkedin's valuations.

And WeWork was worth $47 billion at peak. So?

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