Facebook Inc said on Tuesday it would continue requiring people to accept targeted ads as a condition of using its service, a stance that may help keep its business model largely intact despite a new European Union privacy law.
And
Facebook Deputy Chief Privacy Officer Rob Sherman said the social network would begin seeking Europeans’ permission this week for a variety of ways Facebook uses their data, but he said that opting out of targeted marketing altogether would not be possible.
Whether you like targeted ads or not, it makes sense that Facebook is still going to require users to accept them—it’s their entire business model. The choice is simple—accept the ads or delete the app.
I think the essential transaction is fair: you get free stuff and Facebook gets to charge advertisers to advertise in front of you. And that Facebook wants to target those ads is also fair.
What we’re going through now is a reevaluation of the costs of giving Facebook the information. A dollar is a dollar is a dollar, but how does one measure privacy in dollars? It’s possible to evaluate the services, against the cost of replacing those with paid substitutes. But how much of a monthly fee would I pay to not have my information collected? I bet that answer runs a spectrum.
I ditched them 7 months ago now. The urge to just log back in was extremely strong for the first few weeks. Now I don’t miss it at all and feel a certain contentment when I see the issues arising from the recent scandals. Also worth noting that NONE of my children use Facebook at all. They are the Snapchat generation and see Facebook as something for the oldies.
I disagree that it is fair. There are two primary problems:
1. Facebook doesn’t get your permission to collect data about you. If you are logged out, or even if you don’t have a Facebook account at all, Facebook still does everything it can to track you as much as is humanly possible. They get your contact information from other users, buy your purchase history from retailers, and they do god knows what else to get your information. Users can’t opt out of being tracked by Facebook (though the GDPR law will change this for European users).
2. Facebook is something of a natural monopoly with huge network effects. Everyone is, to a certain extent, compelled to have a Facebook account in order to get invited to events or receive messages from certain people. It would be one thing if we were only talking about the Newsfeed, but when Facebook has taken a significant chunk of basic communication and event planning into its walled garden, this changes things. It is not “fair” that all consumers must give up their personal information to Facebook if they want to be invited to the parties their friends are throwing. This is the same issue I have with more traditional monopolies like telecoms and ISPs. Whenever you are essentially forced to be a customer of a particular company, you are being forced to accept their terms. That’s not a fair exchange.
There’s a reason we apply a higher level of scrutiny and regulation to monopolies, and I absolutely think that we should be thinking of Facebook like a monopoly.
Well, FB makes, in average, a bit of $6 per US user IIRC. So… would you pay, say, $7.99? More to the point, would EVERYONE? The answer to the latter is No. In freemium products only a minority of people usually pay. So if they want to maintain current revenue they need to either:
1) Get everyone to pay monthly
2) Get everyone to either pay or accept ads (with the pay version being ad free)
3) Deal with this on a global basis (you and I might pay $7/month to get rid of ads but how about their users in less wealthy economies? Or in the US but people who are poor?
4) Increment the per month fee at the same rate as $/user are currently growing.
TO me, the ads aren’t a problem. It’s that they sold (and sell) our data to 3rd parties without adequate controls about how that data is managed and until recently, they allowed devs to get data on people who never opted into a particular sharing scenario.
PS: #2 above sounds like the way to go but it’s probable that the people who would pay are precisely the people who advertisers would most like to have in their audience. If that goes away it’s very likely that the ad-free users are less valuable and thus rates might decline. This is aside from the fact that FB would have to develop and test things for both groups and consider what happens as members of each group interact (if I share an ad post with someone who pays, do they see it?)
I agree with your conclusion, I was thinking in terms of having a paid program where I didn’t get ads and a free program where I would. At this moment I wouldn’t pay $8 a month for Facebook, but my opinion is skewed because I’m already comfortable with what I do in its place. But I would agree that that’s a figure in the realm of where I’d expect, somewhere between $5 and $10 a month.
Interesting point about the ad rates. In a past life, I worked for a company that designed and printed programs for athletic events. We had one college we did business with that wanted a free program for its basketball games. We had to make our money on ad sales instead of a cut of the program sales. Back in the day I thought, sure, that shouldn’t be a problem…the ads are going in front of thousands of people 20 times a year! But my boss taught me that lesson: advertisers would pay a pittance for space in those programs, because they want to be in front of someone that had a buck in his pocket.
I agree that would be a challenge for Facebook…but that’s their challenge, not mine. I’m not against ads, either, I’m against the harvesting of my info. If they want any shot at getting me back, they’d need a paid version that has all the functionality of the current version, and had zero tracking or information gathering. I don’t mind ads, and it doesn’t bother me either way if they’re “relevant” or not. You can serve me un-targeted ones. But absolutely no data collection or tracking.
“Every moronic pundit …”
Get stuffed.