An acquisition could pay back investors as well, unless you think nobody would dare buy a nonprofitable company. But I do think there's some credence to this; they are huge and the economy has sunk quite a bit since their famed $15b valuation.

Still, you don't think they could sell for $2b right now?

My point about Facebook Connect is that it's the one thing that can "lock them in" as the social network of the internet... the place where everyone has their real profile and shares what they really do on other websites. If leaving facebook means screwing my account on 10 other sites on I use, then I'm not going to leave, even if you do slam ads down my throat.

How to monetize. Well, if I was a website using facebook connect, which we have to assume they'll be thousands, I'd surely pay facebook to serve up meaningful ads that use information I've sent them: eg: "4 of your friends recently visited Hackernews"

Another thing which I haven't seen a good implementation of is showing off what people buy. If I bought something online I wouldn't be against sharing it with my friends if, for example, it was a cool product or on sale. Facebook could make money from that. With FBconnect, services might start doing this, and facebook can get a piece of the action for showing news feed items that boost sales.

By the way, are Facebook's numbers even public? How do you know they're losing money?