Selling You
Remember how, back in Facebook's halcyon days, a rumor would surface that the social network planned to start charging users for the privilege of poking their friends and playing Mafia Wars and Farmville? The more credulous among us would panic and try to start an online petition imploring Mark Zuckerberg not to take away our free, virtual playground.
These days, we'd probably be relieved if Facebook decided to charge us money to wish our senior prom date a happy birthday. It would be just the excuse we need to go cold turkey, deactivate our accounts, and keep that New Year's resolution to finally figure out how the hell Snapchat works. But Facebook never had any intention to charge. They never will, and they never can.
It's a delicious irony, if you think about it. Facebook has the same business model, and ultimately the same problem, as the traditional news media outlets that complain Facebook ruined them. Of course, in fairness, before the media blamed Facebook, they blamed Google, Craig's List, and the Internet in general. But their real problem is likely as old as the printing press -- people will pay very little, if anything, for news. Walter Lippmann diagnosed this problem way back in 1922, in his seminal book Public Opinion. The only thing of tangible value that newspapers (and later TV and radio) had to sell was their audience. That made media consumers the product, not the customer.
Which brings us back to Facebook. Sure, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg can offer plenty of high-minded reasons for why Facebook operates the way it does -- like providing an egalitarian communications network or affording mom-and-pop stores with small ad budgets the chance to sell their wares online -- but the truth is there is no alternative. Zuckerberg's response to Apple CEO Tim Cook's swipe at him, that Facebook unlike an iPhone is free, is particularly laughable. Yes, iPhones and other Apple products are expensive. But plenty of people seem willing to pay for them. They just don't care to pay for what's on them.