Facebook Premium

[jmduke]

I was incredibly surprised to see that Biz Stone (co-founder of Twitter) wrote this, because it's not just a bad suggestion but it's a bad suggestion without any real depth or analysis.

The hopeful side of me is saying it's an inside joke, because suggesting that someone models a company after Pandora seems like it could only be done in jest; if anything, I think Pandora is an example of how to succeed in technology and fail in commerce.

The cynical side of me is saying that this is linkbait with the purpose to generate clickthrough to Biz's startup, Jelly.

[ChuckMcM]

Holy flashback! I was sitting in Sun trying to explain why the next version of NFS could not be a 'pay' version to SunSoft leadership, and then President Ed Zander said "Chuck, look how many people use NFS, if we got $10 for only 10% of the seats out there we'd fund this company on that." To which I replied, "If you charge $10 then 10% of the seats will be 0 since there will be no seats."

This is the paradox of "infrastructure" services. Today the telephone is an amazing thing. But their value is tied up in the network effect (other people have them so you can use them to call). If nobody has a phone, you buying one has little value, if everyone has a phone then you want one because you can talk to everyone you know.

So Facebook is 'cool' when everyone you know has a presence there, it is 'not cool' when you don't know anyone there. Charging a subscription now, is not plausible, people will leave. Instead you need to sell entire groups and then charge them a subscription fee. Fortunately we have a really great example of someone doing exactly that, it was called Yammer. Put everyone in your business on Yammer (it felt like they just changed the CSS assets in the Facebook code, seriously) and increase connectivity and communication in your team. Instant value proposition if everyone in the company is using it. So you sell a subscription to the company and boom, done.

Now if you wanted to create Facebook for Enterprise to compete with Yammer, that might be interesting, and to bake in the notion of "Enterprise" presence and "Non Business" presence into the same user account, that would generate revenue. And if you told people, "if your company signs up for Facebook for Enterprises you're personal account will also be ad free and have these additional features ...." then you can create 'pull' where people actually want to lobby for it inside.

But just doing a subscription model probably won't work.

[md224]

> Charging a subscription now, is not plausible, people will leave.

From the article:

> For $10 a month, people who really love Facebook (and can afford it), could see no ads. Maybe some special features too.

Biz isn't suggesting a paywall here; he's suggesting a freemium model. I'm not sure people would leave if Facebook merely announced that people could pay $10/month for extra features if they felt like it.

Of course, I have my own concerns about ad-free premium services... it creates a socio-economic divide between those who can afford to avoid advertisements and those who cannot. Not the end of the world, but it gives me pause.

[ChikkaChiChi]

The TL;DR: "I bet if Facebook got 10% of the subscribers to pay 10 bucks a month for something, they could make a billion in revenue."

The reason why social media bubble exists is that they call people who use the service "subscribers" These people did not outlay anything they would consider meaningful to enter into said "subscription" contract.

Don't assume seeing mom's pictures of your family's cat somehow assumes people are willing to pay for the service.

source for anecdote: app.net.

[StavrosK]

Ah, the old "if even <some low number> of people pay for it, we're golden!" thing.

I'm going to go sell rocks at a concert for $1m a pop. The concert is 100,000 people, if even 0.01% pays for them, I'm rich!

[guiomie]

Talk about a great analogy. Selling rocks vs a Subscription model to the biggest social network on the planet.

[ams6110]

Never underestimate the willingness of some minority of people to pay for the most ridiculous things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Rock

[alockj]

Selling rocks vs subscription model for one of the biggest companies in the world. Not sure that's an entirely sensible analogy!

[garduque]

Ads don't bother me that much, really. Between AdBlock and general desensitization to them, they're pretty easy to ignore.

But how much can I pay to never see another update about one of my friends playing any kind of game or app or quiz; to automatically reject and hide any invites to any game or app or quiz; to never get an Event invite ever again, and to never see Upcoming Events in my sidebar; to never see another friend suggestion or Pages You Might Like or Games You Might Like or Music Pages You Might Like; to make my newsfeed show me everything from everyone I choose to view there, in chronological order always, not just what the Computer In The Sky thinks I want to see when I want to see it; to make it stop asking me to dig through my contacts for more friend suggestions?

And if all of those things are possible now, how much can I pay for a simple one-page settings page so I can actually make it happen?

Maybe not $120/yr, but if there were definite improvements to my user experience above and beyond just taking out ads, I'd think about it.

[davycro]

Someone willing to pay $10 a month to hide ads probably uses AdBlock.

[outside1234]

exactly. and it works across sites, not just on facebook.

[jwheeler79]

This is a common error in human misjudgement that just because you had one relevant idea in the past it automatically follows future ideas should be so relevant. But, they're not, and 10% of the people are not going to pay for no ads.

[jdrenterprises]

"...and 10% of the people are not going to pay for no ads."

Any data to base this assumption on?

Maybe it won't be 10%... but even 1%, 4%, 6% are a solid revenue stream with a user base the size of Facebook's.

[rastapanda]

I think if implemented there would a massive conflict of interest because those paying for Facebook premium are going to be the individuals advertisers are targeting most, especially if it's $10 per month. It's essentially saying lets remove all the people with disposable income out of the eye of the advertisers. To me this seems like biting the hand that feeds.

[samirahmed]

Honestly, the idea of a facebook subscription is not a new idea, nor is it a feasible idea. It is something people have discussed on HN about for years now. Not to mention $10 a month is unrealistic in every developing country where roughly 40% of facebooks users are based (brazil, india, indonesia ...)

[klawed]

I would look more to LinkedIn Premium or OKC which lets paying users see more about those in their network (like who's visiting their profile).

[xpose2000]

I'm shocked Biz Stone made this blog post. His solution is basically to "lose the ads and maybe some special features too" for 10 bucks a month. There is no way that is good enough.

Perhaps what he is really getting at is that Facebook should consider some type of Reddit Gold feature? Where users gain access to beta features first and various perks.

Now that, would be interesting.

[omonra]

This article is the ultimate proof that ANY Medium link is garbage.

I'm glad Tolstoy is not around anymore and is not able to post on Medium as it would surely turn out to be bad.

[tocomment]

Unrelated but why hasn't Facebook ever tried to become a payments platform? They certainly have enough users and I'm guessing they'd make a ton of money.

[mmanfrin]

I've always thought this would be their golden goose. It would serve two main purposes: give them a source of revenue (processing fees for their 'Pay with Facebook' button, and additionally get people to save their credit card with FB, converting to a lot more FB credits for games.

[eCa]

> he needs to use [Facebook] to communicate with his new co-workers

Who uses Facebook for internal company communication?

[pushtheenvelope]

Actually, Facebook (the company) does a remarkable amount of internal company communication using it.

[herval]

A lot of people, as far as I know. Private groups are still a direct competitor for the likes of Podio and Yammer, as ridiculous or stupid this may sound...

[jivid]

Facebook themselves use Facebook pretty heavily for internal communication.

[rfnslyr]

Not a single soul aside from this man.

[epa]

I cant believe that this was an article posted by such a successful entrepreneur. This is the type of amateur idea and discussion you would expect from a grade 10 student. He has lost all credibility due to him actually saying (and believes) that 10% of users would pay for this feature.

[ams6110]

I've heard this basic idea from all kinds of really successful businesspeople. This idea that there's some minimal level of buy-in (10%, or whatever) that you can just take for granted. It comes up most often when someone is challenging the premise of their idea. "Well if we only get X% it'll still be a win" etc.

[fatemayasmine]

Wouldn't the same analysis apply to Twitter? Why don't they have a premium service.

[ihuman]

It sounds like he thinks Twitter's ads cause engagement, and therefor you don't need to hide them.

[exacube]

The way I see it, Facebook manages and displays all the content you and your friends provide, so it is nothing without the content providers. There is something really odd about paying for a service so you can look at what your friends' content.. it's an upsetting idea. Sure, a paid subscription is totally optional, but it will still make me (and probably tons of others) queasy to see Facebook asking you to pay if you want to use it better.

[ams6110]

I don't think you'd get 10% uptake on paying for an ad-free experience on a site like Facebook which is mostly teenagers with no money of their own.

[simonw]

Facebook is used by about one sixth of the world's population. I don't think the site is mostly teenagers any more.

[vinceguidry]

Sounds like an awful idea that might get you short-term revenue, but kill your long-term strategy. You'd be cannibalizing your most profitable advertising asset, asking for money from the people who least want to give it to you (Facebook users) and spurning it from the people who have more of it and are much more interested in giving it to you. (advertisers)

[guiomie]

I dont know why everyone is lamenting its the worst idea ever.

Personally, I wouldn't pay 10$, but 5$ I would. No ads, with an extra feature, such as, voice to phone number communication.

[austinheap]

This has to be from KTVU.