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Comment by sircastor | Hacker News Reader

I mean, sure this sounds great - if Facebook would let us pay for access instead of selling data on us - but I don't see that happening ever. Aside from this being an obvious bluff, I see the best case scenario is that Facebook charges for a premium access, but still tracks you as best it can get away with. If Facebook can figure out how to do it, they'd sell you a service and sell your info to the highest bidder.

Also, Facebook doesn't track purely for better ads. That's the benign version. Facebook tracks because it wants to own the aggregate profile of "you" online.

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Also the users willing to pay are the most valuable to advertise to.

I think I also read the per user dollar value of ad revenue was $150/month? Way more than any individual would pay - and losing a subset would reduce this for the others.

Also the preference for targeted ads is rationalized nonsense (imo) when the cost is user data:

“To test if users truly find 'relevant ads' as value-add: make two products, one with ads and one without and charge for the one with ads - see how many people buy it.

Why doesn't Hulu charge more many for their streaming service with ads instead of their service without? The behavior of these companies suggests they know on some level this value-add nonsense is a rationalization. Even if you say it's only value-add when compared to un-targeted ads - let users choose to have un-targeted ads without giving up their data privacy. I'd bet money on what choice they'd make.”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27069492

Your $150/month per user is way too high. According to their valuation it is closer to $50/user per year.

Ah - thanks, I vaguely recalled $150 but not sure where I read that.

According to this, FB only make $30 per user per year.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/234056/facebooks-average...

I would pay double that in a heartbeat to remove ads from Facebook and Instagram!

US users are probably looking in the $100 to $200 range, if I've read my SEC report right. The other problem is then they have to think about churn in a different way - right now, it's easy to resurrect churned users. When people are paying, it changes their behaviors and relationship with a company.

That's a global statistic. Some users are far more valuable. For example, users in Canada and the US generate more than that per quarter. You would pay double but if you are in the US that's not enough. Would you pay 5x that (or about what you pay for Netflix)?

If they remove the ads, reorganize the feed, stop showing crap and let me focus on the things that are worth seeing, don't optimize for spending more time on the site, etc then not only would I pay a reasonable amount, but I would use FB more.

I remember FB as a place I would want to go and share content. These days I only spend a few minutes checking my notifications (and FB is definitively getting wise to that because they are putting more and more irrelevant things into them).

And do what with it?

What kind of conspiracy theory is this? Why does Facebook want to go to the expense and effort of building a useless profile of you?

It’s not useless if they sell it

Well he said they don't.

First of all, "shadow profikes" aren't a conspiracy theory. They're a fact.

Secondly, the profiles aren't 'useless'. They're highly valuable. Both for being able to present users with a targeted experience from day one & for controlling the internet-identity part of the online world. Which will surely only become more important with time, as more and more things from our lives move online.

Parent said "Also, Facebook doesn't track purely for better ads. That's the benign version. Facebook tracks because it wants to own the aggregate profile of "you" online"

He's implying that they aren't doing this for better ads or targeting. I'm not saying that "shadow profiles" don't exist, I'm saying that they do, and they're benign.

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