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Comment by sequoia | Hacker News Reader

The whole premise of this article is "Facebook gave me this access to their platform for free hitherto, so I'm entitled to this access on those same terms in perpetuity; it's unfair for them to start charging for it." I don't see the author explaini why s/he is entitled to these same terms forever.

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I think this quote explains it nicely:

>I used to get a great deal from using Facebook—but I understood it to be a two-way reciprocal arrangement because I was driving traffic back to Facebook as well, and reinforcing their brand awareness with prominent widgets on our blog

Now Facebook has lots of brand awareness and decides it could live without any individual blog's widgets. What an unpredictable turn of events!

Not exactly:

"Had Facebook debuted the Promote “option” with a more reasonable rate card that would apply to frequently updated blogs and media outlets—something akin to “book rate” at the post office—we’d have been willing to pay between $7 to $10 a post."

They're basically haggling about the price.

Its a funny thing. When I read your comment I remember it saying exactly that on the Facebook Sign up page. Something along the lines of "Its free (and always will be)".

Right, the basic version I guess. It's free and always will be.

Personally, I thought it was awesome that Hem and Haw were linking to Who Moved My Cheese? and suggesting someone else needed to read it. This seems to be a very cut-and-dry Who Moved My Cheese scenario.

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