Are you connected using 3G? They'll be able to infer from that which areas you spend most of your time in, because your provider sells that information on to them. Oh yes. (Possibly.)

:|

Don't use Facebook then.

:|

All of these services would be chargeable without adverts. Just saying...

I want to install a component on all computers so that whenever someone writes "just saying" it opens a hatch and punches them in the privates.

And if they also say anything equivalent to "you're not allowed to complain because it's free" or "the adverts are the price you pay" or similar then it also slaps them round the face.

Are you this angry in real life?

I don't entirely subscribe to that notion, and free things can certainly be shit but the adverts are the price you pay and honestly, if you dislike it so much just stop using it.

I don't particularly enjoy the Facebook experience, but it's free and mostly works.

I think/hope that model of business is going to die off soon. Someone really needs to find another way to make websites pay.

Sometimes.

Someone with more clevers than me once said, " If you're using service online that is free then YOU are the product".

I kind of agree, but then I don't really want to pay for this stuff either :D

 

Mind you, I do and have paid for some online things and they would certainly be more accountable.

Yeah paying a sub isn't a good model either. They're both kinda old-media models shoehorned into the web where they don't really fit.

Donation models are cool, so long as you've got a userbase who (enough of whom at least) will pay. And so long as you let people who don't donate see everything (otherwise it's just subs under a different name).

The crop of free-to-play games of late are kinda interesting (the ones that are genuinely free-to-play, that is, rather than pay-to-win). Making your service free but selling vanity/convenience items. Although applying that to a website takes us into Delphi territory.

Someone with more clevers than me once said, "go ahead and use this service for free, it doesn't really cost me much if you do, and I'm happy to help people when I can."

It was me. Multiple times.

And no doubt plenty of other people too.

Not everyone on earth is a money-hungry selfish twat.

Go on Peter - run a service at Facebooks level for free. Have you ever priced up datacentre space, decent hardware, bandwidth and power?

I'm not trying to be mean, but this stuff is expensive. I mean, really really expensive. Even assuming people will work for free.

Um, you're entirely missing the point of that post.

You'll need to explain it to me in simple words then. They've got to be profitable somehow, and nobody has come up with a better way yet.

I think his point is (and I agree, though I don't think it applies to Facebook) that they don't have to be profitable.

They've still got to break even, though. And even that costs a hell of a lot when you're that big.

 

Edit: That was point, and I think it still stands.

By which I mean...

Firstly there's something which may provide a valuable service but isn't easy to put a financial value on.

Secondly you could run it as an old-fashioned 'business'. i.e. you make enough to live on and reinvest the rest into the service. Operating more like a tradesman than a businessman. Simply providing a service and getting recompensed for doing so. Not looking to make profit.

Also I think we have to realise that the little sites help the big sites. The greater the diversity and usefulness of the web, the more potential 'paying' customers the big sites have. So while something may not have a direct financial payoff for the people who run the site (or whatever), it all contributes to a healthier and more prosperous internet overall.