Mark Zuckerberg, Let Me Pay for Facebook | Hacker News Reader

Mark Zuckerberg, Let Me Pay for Facebook

nytimes.com

19 pointszer0011 comments

The professor makes a pretty elementary error in calculating the amount the user would have to pay to replace advertising. She cites the profit per user—not the revenue. It's still a small amount per user, but for readers who spot the error but don't take the time to check the revenue amount might write off her argument based on this fundamental mistake.

Great point.

2014 revenue: 12.5B (11.5B advertising, 974MM payments and other fees)

2014 users: ~1.3B but probably ~700MM daily users

Annual Revenue per user: ~$8.85 - ~$17 (depending how you count it)

My personal experience is that people claim that they would pay more for things than they actually would, especially when its more on principal (privacy). And I imagine just having to go through the trouble of handing over your credit card would be a significant deterrent. That's why I imagine companies like Apple are so insistent to have payment information on file to make that transaction easier.

You cannot compare averages because the users who choose to pay to kill ads will not be randomly selected. No, there will be massive adverse selection -- the users with lots of disposable income are the ones that make advertising lucrative, and will be exactly the ones who pay to opt out of it. The averages massively understate what they would have to charge.

This is insane. Facebook does not care what its users think- even to the point of illegally tracking non-users.

http://www.sciencealert.com/this-portable-capsule-lets-you-l...

Why give them money, why reward them, for their arrogance?

Your two sentences don't relate.

They obviously will do whatever they feel they can get away with. If they feel entitled to illegally track non-users, how could anyone presume they'd give a rat's ass for actual users?

Paying for Facebook will not solve the problem of corporate surveillance, thus the lucrative business of collecting personal data. Only legislation and enforcing that legislation will.

> If Facebook didn’t have to control the feed to keep us on the site longer and to inject ads into our stream, it could instead offer us control over this algorithm.

Facebook has launched features in the past to let people control what Newsfeed shows. None of them did very well.

> I would, as I bet many others would, happily pay more than 20 cents per month for a Facebook or a Google that...upgraded its encryption...

FB and Google do some of the world's best work on internet crypto. Give them some credit.

The author seems to ignore the degree of power Facebook, Zuckerberg, and friends gain from a vast quantity of detailed information about people's lives.

I can't imagine Zuckerberg would trade the unlimited upside (optionality) of real power and influence for stable, predictable income. Upside is why Facebook's market cap as of today is $230 billion.

Eh? Just get out of Facebook. We've got Gmail. Oh, wait.

I wouldn't pay for privacy, but I'd pay to access other people's private information. Go the LinkedIn route!

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