You’re argument is flawed. The fact that nobody would cancel their accounts when you told them to does not mean that they were liars. It means that they haven’t been charged for facebook usage yet…

I don’t think that any of you understand the point of facebook. Kids like it because the emphasis wasn’t on adults, and payment was never a factor when it was created. It was a place where you could exist without your parents, without the economy, without trouble.

That iss why people left myspace, and that is where facebook is going now, and that is why it is having economic troubles.

I believe it is patriotic of them to act as such. If you remember the times leading up to the revolution, taxes were being imposed on the colonists where there had been none before.

In this day and age of electronics, a 10 year old can make a website. I’m a junior in college, majoring in Aerospace Engineering, and I guarantee you that I could make an alternative to facebook in a month. The source code is out there, its not that hard.

The push in IT is towards FREE. Google has an entire suite of free apps, open office and ubuntu are completely free. why shouldnt facebook be the same?

Look again at the last two kids’ comments on Benton’s blog:

“It’s easier to find stuff on iTunes, and you get the album art.”
— “There was an EP from a band I liked that was only on iTunes.”

So while they’d sooner have it for free they’ll pay if it’s exclusive, or the best.

It’s always been that way.

Thus, it only exists because it is free and convenient. But, because it is a totally unnecessary in making connections, and this generation understands that, it ceasing to exists or the equivalent via charging would not phase them one bit.

And I use the term necessary because this generation has a very narrow definition of necessary. This generation was raised to believe that to prevent the world from destroying itself, they would have to sacrifice a lot of things that older generations take for granted as necessities. As they age into adults, they are living a lot more streamlined lives than older generations.

Raised to work as teams, they don’t see a necessity for privacy. Raised with collective mentality, they don’t see a necessity for getting their own place. And, living with instant communication via numerous avenues, they don’t see the necessity for paying for information. Landlines are a thing of the past and TV is a dying breed, so, why should traditional newspapers have a hope.

Not burdened with the older generations rigid concepts of what is necessary, and with the usual vitality of youth, they are much more flexible and adaptable. Thus, they are very confident that they can either create it themselves via other avenues or survive without.

Unnecessary convenience.

We just wrote about this on our blog http://www.unionroom.com/blog/would-you-pay-to-use-facebook/

I’m 33 and have used facebook since 2005 (I went back to college then). It was free and was a great tool for communicating with my fellow classmates (it was only college students using it then I believe). Over the last year or two, there has been an explosion in the number of people using FB, and it is still free. It’s been great getting to talk to old friends I haven’t talked to since graduating high school in 94. But if FB were to charge, I wouldn’t pay.

Imagine for a minute that you were to eat at a restaurant every day for 4 years free of charge. Then one day you walk in and have to pay. Well, for me, I wouldn’t pay because I could just go buy the food myself and cook it. I rarely ever go out to eat because I can cook better and healthier than most restaurants…and the ones that do cook better than me are way too expensive for me to spend on a regular basis.

Even though people do pay to go out to eat, there is something about suddenly not being able to eat for free at this one place that has ALWAYS been free. I know people who don’t eat in a restaurant when they raise prices…simply because they were keeping up with inflation! So suddenly charging for something that was previously free is a tough hurdle to get over.

Not to mention that with FB, if they started charging there would be other sites that would start (not to mention current sites that are still free) that people would go to. Many of my friends belong to other sites already as well.

Also bear in mind that long before FB came along, there was classmates.com. Sure you can join for free, but in order to send and receive messages you have to pay for a membership…or the other person does….at least one person must pay. A lot of people have registered on there for free, but they did not bother to pay for a membership because they don’t see the point. Why pay to talk to people you haven’t seen in 15 years…you still talk to you good friends and those others just fade away (as has been tradition for years as people grow and move).

Now, take a look at music. Sure, most people have illegally downloaded a free song or two. Some have illegaly downloaded TONS of free songs. And there are a very small minority of people who illegally download and NEVER pay for music. Most people don’t have a problem paying for digital downloads or buying CDs. Why? Because there has always been a cost to buying CDs…and some people like buying digital music because you can pay $1 for that one song you want instead of $20 for a whole CD that you aren’t going to enjoy. What about those that never pay? Well there are thieves that never pay for food or clothing. There will always be someone who steals.

The point I’m trying to make is that people don’t want to pay for something that was previously free. If there had always been a cost to use it, then people would be more willing to pay. But not when you add a cost to it.

Look at email as well. I have a few yahoo accounts…one is my personal email. Another is one I use when I sign up for anything so it gets the spam. Another is one I use while job hunting. I have three because they are free. If Yahoo were to start charging, I would simply use the email provided by my ISP or my college. I wouldn’t pay for an additional email and I’d just deal with the spam like everyone else.

Then, let’s assume that 6 clever Indians figure that they can duplicate Facebook and make a good living from the adverts.

Overnight, with the speed of light, Facebook members will move to the new site. No one cares who created it. No one cares where it is hosted. Free is better than paying.

You’re onto something. With the right six people, you can raise a considerable amount of hell. I can’t prove it, but I suspect you could even cover your expenses with sponsorship ads (without resorting to the PBS/NPR-style beg-a-thon twice a year). I’d humbly suggest ditching the editors. Treat it like my first small daily: edit each other, everybody writes.

That gets at the real frustration of the paid-content debate, however: The argument that we must save newspapers – complete with their existing organizational structures, which were driven by print production cycles and monopoly economics. (You might recall certain deputy managing editors in charge of lunch and rearranging furniture at that Former Shop of Ours.)

Happy to bust hump to save journalism. To save newspapers? Not so much.

They do that today. It’s called digital gifts. A venture firm estimates that this is a 35 million dollar annual business for Facebook — more than 10% of the company’s current revenue.

http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/facebook-selling-digital-gifts-at-a-35m-run-rate/

The majority answer was zero, but some students said they’d paid $10 or $15 a year. One said she’d pay $60. I said I’d pay a dime a day — $36.50.

Then I challenged those who said zero. “You’re all liars,” I said, “because most of you would not cancel your account if they charged a small fee. If you would, go on there right now and cancel it.”

No one was willing to cancel. “So now you’re telling me the account has some value.”

If Facebook has 175 million members, and it institutes a $10 annual fee, that would be $1.75 billion. Of course, they would not retain 100 percent of its membership. But if 75 million cancelled, they’d still take in $1 billion in revenue — without lifting a finger.

I believe Facebook is weighing different ways to make money besides advertising. In fact, Facebook is still hammering out what kind of social network it ultimately wants to be. But I wouldn’t compare a startup culture to that of an established business. Many Web startups resist trying to seriously monetize their work for years, because first they want to build as big of an audience as possible.

You have to keep in mind that Facebook suffers if there is a barrier to entry for those creating content — the users. Whereas newspapers are the opposite.

But I believe that premium content/features are the best way to make money off the Web beyond advertising. Newspapers should figure out what people are willing to pay for, rather than trying to force people to pay for content that they clearly don’t value.

But charging for basic content doesn’t work on the Web.

Rather, I’d be interesting in knowing if some of these students would be willing to pay for premium features. Facebook rivals Flickr for the amount of photos on it. Yet, Flickr has a premium account they make money off of, while Facebook does not. This is clearly and area where Facebook could make money.

Why not charge for the ability to store more photos (say over 500 or something along those lines). Or how about charge for the ability to store full-resolution photos. This would make Facebook into a defacto online backup solution for photos. I would also aggressively pursue a way to sell photos, photo albums, etc on Facebook.

There is money to be made off of Facebook. But if you think charging for the basic service makes sense, you’re crazy. That’s not how you make money off the Web.