The major draw of Facebook is ubquity -- everyone you know from high school, college, maybe even the office has a profile. Charging for Facebook would drive away large swaths of users, and I predict that would have a negative snowballing effect: what's the use if only a small (and decreasing) portion of the people I know use it?
Compare with Classmates.com -- you have to pay for their useful features, and hardly anyone I know uses it beyond a curious/casual initial sign-up. -Jonathan On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 2:08 PM, mark schraad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > It's to late for the pay for service model. If that was the direction > they wanted to go in, it should have been implemented in mid growth > stage prior to maturity, when the delta was steep. Instead, they were > betting (I am assuming) on some magic pie-in-the-sky startup > evaluation that never materialized (well, except for MS). Monetizing > early caps your potential worth to logical and realistic measures. > Wouldn't want that in the silicon magic venture valley. > > Now that most of the features have been realized and are available for > free, and the growth delta is decreasing, and people are unlikely to > pony up. They gambled and they lost that round. That does not mean > they will walk away with nothing... but it won't likely break any > records. Timing is critical and bankable fortune telling is rare. > > Mark > > > > > > On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 1:49 PM, Will Evans <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> I don't disagree with you Andrei - I think some people would value it - >> between $3 and $12/month. Its currently free - and I see 0 value in (hence >> my page is so dead), but some - like DaveM, do value it, and might even be >> willing to pay for the privilege of being super-poked. >> >> On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 1:43 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk < >> [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >>> On Oct 9, 2008, at 5:27 PM, Jared Spool wrote: >>> >>> What I've been praying for, to learn what Facebook's business plan is, >>>> will be finally answered! >>>> In 3 years, once Mark Zuckerberg figures it out. >>>> >>>> http://is.gd/3MSY >>>> >>> >>> So... I have to wonder out loud: Why not just charge $9/month for a >>> Facebook account? I know that's so 1992 with an that oh-so-dated America >>> Online model, but hey... At some point, we'll all finally get past the >>> silly notion that stuff should always be free. Advertising can only support >>> so many businesses in this space. >>> >>> Sure, they'd piss people off (too bad, I say) and lose a bunch in the >>> process. But if they retained only 25% of a user base of around 50M that are >>> willing to pay $9/month or $99/year, that's 12.5M users, and a yearly >>> revenue of something like $1.2B a year. The question is more would they be >>> able to keep 10M to 12M people paying $9 a month, I think. >>> >>> Blizzard has around that for World of Warcraft paying $15 a month, and it's >>> just a game. I think Facebook would be able to pull it off. >>> >>> If Facebook or Google started charging for accounts (Google then gets money >>> for its applications like Docs, Spreadsheets and such), it would open the >>> door for everyone in the software business to get back to having real >>> business models that aren't built out of straw during a fire season waiting >>> for it all to go up in smoke at a moment's notice. >> ________________________________________________________________ >> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! >> To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe >> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines >> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help >> > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
