What would happen if they just said, "Okay, no more access to your site unless you pay 12 dollars a year". Or...no more than 50 page views a day without a subscription, or similar.
Would it be a total collapse? If advertising isn't working, well...
I think that would be a total collapse. Well, maybe not total, but there would be a flood of people leaving the service, for sure. I, for one, would not pay a cent to access Facebook. I just may copy down information for the people that I've gotten into touch with over Facebook and deactivate my account.
As for page views option, that wouldn't work either. I, personally, don't do more than 10 page views a day and most of my friends are the same. I suspect many people just check their profile, answer wall posts or messages, look at some apps and log out. There is not much there that can hold your attention.
All Facebook can really do now is pray that people still find it interesting. I think the Beacon was their attempt at monetizing the interest. That got shut down, so they're SOL.
* I suspect many people just check their profile,...*
I suspect many people spend hours and hours on it. These are the ones who should, perhaps, be urged to pay. The light users are more likely to leave on any harassment.
I can say with completely confidence that it would be a total collapse. Among the core of college students, almost no one is going to pay. And the site becomes practically useless once the penetration rate is no longer 100%.
Possibly, because it wouldn't happen in isolation. Some still-free FB competitor would make a huge effort to get all the users who didn't want to pay, get most of them, and then most of the paying users would leave FB because their friends had.
If history is any indication, then yes. The Dutch website http://www.schoolbank.nl that let you get back in touch with former school mates tried just that and saw their users leave, for example to the Dutch facebook workalike http://www.hyves.nl
Facebook's execs take great pains, at every opportunity, to point out that they don't plan to do this and that they see Facebook as an ad-supported product.
I think that they think that charging for access would be a disaster
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What would happen if they just said, "Okay, no more access to your site unless you pay 12 dollars a year". Or...no more than 50 page views a day without a subscription, or similar.
Would it be a total collapse? If advertising isn't working, well...
I think that would be a total collapse. Well, maybe not total, but there would be a flood of people leaving the service, for sure. I, for one, would not pay a cent to access Facebook. I just may copy down information for the people that I've gotten into touch with over Facebook and deactivate my account.
As for page views option, that wouldn't work either. I, personally, don't do more than 10 page views a day and most of my friends are the same. I suspect many people just check their profile, answer wall posts or messages, look at some apps and log out. There is not much there that can hold your attention.
All Facebook can really do now is pray that people still find it interesting. I think the Beacon was their attempt at monetizing the interest. That got shut down, so they're SOL.
* I suspect many people just check their profile,...*
I suspect many people spend hours and hours on it. These are the ones who should, perhaps, be urged to pay. The light users are more likely to leave on any harassment.
I can say with completely confidence that it would be a total collapse. Among the core of college students, almost no one is going to pay. And the site becomes practically useless once the penetration rate is no longer 100%.
Would it be a total collapse?
Possibly, because it wouldn't happen in isolation. Some still-free FB competitor would make a huge effort to get all the users who didn't want to pay, get most of them, and then most of the paying users would leave FB because their friends had.
If history is any indication, then yes. The Dutch website http://www.schoolbank.nl that let you get back in touch with former school mates tried just that and saw their users leave, for example to the Dutch facebook workalike http://www.hyves.nl
Facebook's execs take great pains, at every opportunity, to point out that they don't plan to do this and that they see Facebook as an ad-supported product.
I think that they think that charging for access would be a disaster