We are spoiled silly. We want everything for free, if we have to pay five bucks a month for a service that we can’t live without, we whine and bitch like crazy. Each day I wake up and my day starts with using all these different wonderful services such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, etc. etc. And I DON’T pay a dime for them. Why? Cause just like you I am a brat and I want everything for free. Today I just wanted to talk a bit about Facebook and one of their services that they should have made a paid feature.
I personally think that Facebook should have made the “Facebook Fan Page” a paid feature. I don’t see any reason for it to be free. All major brands are using these platforms for free, I think Facebook should get a piece of the pie, don’t you? If one of these brands would have to reach out to 250 million plus people through traditional media such magazines, television ads or newspaper they would pay thousands for one circulation, why not get a couple buck out of them? I don’t see a reason why they can’t pay and why Facebook can’t make them pay.
I was just talking to my wife the other day. There aren’t many sustainable business model on the internet anymore cause everything is FREE. A new service comes out and if they start charging people, everyone is against it. Everyone wants to use it, they think it’s a killer service but hell they want to use it for free. This forces these new awesome companies to charge nothing for their service, give everyone everything for free and pay any operating cost from their own pocket. Way to go webizens (including me).
I think Facebook fan page could have been a tremendous boost for them. Hell, if it was me I would lose a 100 million users if I had to and charge a buck for using Facebook. I mean seriously, I understand there is a long term goal and all but companies need to start charging us free loaders. We are already so spoiled and if they keep spoiling us, we will soon make them go out of business, trust me we have the power and we aren’t afraid to bitch and whine so we don’t have to pay a dime. And yes, if Facebook said pay 10 bucks a month to use Facebook I would freaking pay for it. 250 million users that you can network and push your shit and you don’t have to pay a penny?! Come on now.
Well that was my rant. But the case in point is that since Facebook pages are mostly utilized by big businesses, I think Facebook should have charged for this service. Am I over my head? Maybe. Do I care you disagree with me? Honestly, I don’t…..cause we have got to shell out some bucks to get things going on the web so more businesses can thrive and shit can happen. And here we are, talking about economy.
Get your rocks ready and throw them at me one more time. I am ready and no matter how hard you hit me, I am a firm believer that we need to pay to use services rather than being such freeloading, whining assholes.
By the way, join me on Facebook. If you are not on Facebook yet, make sure to open an account. Why? Cause it’s FREE.
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Hi, My name is Ritu. I am a member of SMA (Social Media Anonymous) ;-) & help bloggers and businesses utilize the social web. 
Whoa!
Facebook does charges for Facebook Ads and some other stuff. But Fan Pages hmmm .. direct online advertising directly going out to Millions.
Hello Gmail, Hello WordPress, Hello Twitter
Ohh wait, they are all free too!! Damn, we are spoiled
and FB do charge for micropayments stuff – that fad a while back of sending stupid “gifts” to people… but yeh – I can see what you’re saying.
But then there are other popular web services out there that do charge or at least have a payable option for the non-free very basic package thats there to get your trying it out – all of 37 signals applications, Mint, Mozy, Dropbox, Expression Engine… and of course hosting!
So then, how do you feel the open source ethos has affected this? I’m not sure its just because we complain when things aren’t free – I think there’s a strong community of people who make stuff who believe in things being free – its partly a reaction to the m$ culture, and partly a love of just making things.
I mean as far as I can tell, Twitter don’t make anything – they don’t even have advertising – if they wanted to make money they could very easily, without hitting us for it. But they don’t. Why?
Don’t get me wrong, there are things that I will happily pay for – I’m a big fan of Expression Engine – I pay $250 per license to use it, but compared to other CMSs I’ve tried I think it’s worth every penny as it’s perfect for what I want.
I also play Eve Onine – one of the more expensive MMOs out there and I happily pay my monthly subs, cause the time and effort they put into the game is worth it. I could play Guild Wars for free, but I personally don’t think that’s right.
I guess I’m saying I agree with you, but I also don’t quite know where I’ll find the money to pay for all the extra things I use for work on top of insurance, hosting, mobiles, CMSs, and errr… the MMO!
Sure this would have been some revenue generation idea for Facebook.
Still facebook rocks mate.
@Andy : Thanks for your thoughtful comment on the subject. I agree with what you have to say and also received some email (not sure why they couldn’t say it here) saying Facebook makes money through ads and such. I agree. But my main point is that we are so used to getting free stuff that most of us are unwilling to pay for almost anything these days. We have stopped realizing the fact that to run these services there are operating cost. And although it might be least of our problems, this is why we have seen some good services fail to offer services in the long run.
I do appreciate your feedback and you stopping by each time to see whether or not to throw rocks at me. I very much appreciate your participation and thoughts. Thank you!
@Rahul : Ohh yeah Facebook absolutely rocks, that’s why we need to empty our wallets a little