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Comment by maxniederhofer | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if Facebook would have done better if they had started charging power users. If users were the customers Facebook would have avoided this whole mess. Assuming a reasonable $10/month per power user, a conversion rate of 2-3%, at 500 million users they'd be generating $1.2-$1.8 billion in high-margin revenue. Instead, users are the product. Advertisers are the customers. And Facebook is generating maybe $1B in lower-margin revs. Admittedly the growth prospects of being the big display advertising/lead gen platform are better than being the leading social network.

On the other hand, isn't this great for HN users? Facebook is screwing up in some core areas. Up and at'em, I say!

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If users were the customers ... really gets to the core of the problem that Facebook has evolved itself into.

Instead, users are the product. Advertisers are the customers.

Too bad the original article failed to clearly make this point.

Interesting... How would you define power user? (In this context)

There are several groups they could go after:

a) people, often students who run their entire social lives on facebook, have 1000+ friends, and spend a long time every day on the site. Often students. Probably don't have much money -- but you might be able to get them hooked with small payments. Also, market it as a gift thing. Your uncle doesn't know what to get you for chrismas, but knows you spend a lot of time on facebook and has no problem spending $20 for a present. Also something to buy for the girl you're flirting with (and yes, it likely is that gendered). Livejournal made this work very well. In this situation it doesn't matter _what_ you offer for the paid account, just that it exists as an option.

b) anybody using it profesionally: event promoters, venue owners, bands, etc. May not deeply like or understand FB, but getting it right is worth serious money to them. Simplification, information management, statistics, maybe tech support.

c) Professionals who know nothing about facebook, but feel they should have a presence there. Sell them a service with lots of hand-holding, maybe integration with tools they already use.

Thank you :)

Just here's link for a) http://www.livejournal.com/paidaccounts/

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