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Comment by tokenadult | Hacker News Reader

That sounds about right, based on my usage. I understand how Google makes money from its users, and I've heard about Yahoo's struggles to make money from its users, but I'm still puzzled how Facebook makes money from its users. (I visit Facebook with AdBlock and Facebook Purity on, so I generally don't see Facebook ads, which I remember as very schlocky from when I could still see them.)

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That's easy -- they make money from ads -- just like Google. I doubt all of your friends are using AdBlock and Facebook Purity.

>That sounds about right, based on my usage.

Based on my usage, HN would be #3 or 4 website worldwide.

Yes, I should have written, "Based on what evidence I encounter of other people using the site as I use various sites."

I know, I meant to be amusing rather than pedantic - left out the :)

Well, I was amused, and I must acknowledge that if only my usage were considered, HN would be a top-ten site.

They really don't yet. They have more traffic than yahoo but somewhere between 5-10% the revenues. There are a lot of theories as to how they will make money, but those schlocky ads you saw will at most be a small portion of it if they ever hit Google-sized revenues.

And of course profit is related to earnings more than just to revenue. It's not clear to me that Facebook's services are inexpensive enough to run and compelling enough to users over the long term to build a profitable business.

That's part of the problem. Even in web services, a 90% profit margin is unrealistic. So if you're doing the same volume as Google (operating margin of around 30%) but making only 5% RPU, you're probably not profiting much.

That's a lot of why Facebook is only barely profitable, whereas Google was making a killing when it had their traffic levels.

Facebook is in fact profitable.

Facebook is in fact profitable.

In the AOL sense, or in the Walmart sense? I thought the latest reporting still suggested that there isn't positive return for any of Facebook's investors yet.

Cashflow positive.

ROI for investors will have to wait for a bit I think, given the sum of money involved. Still, I found it quite surprising that they were already in the black.

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