It's free.
I've never bought any game tokens or anything like that. I just post shit, and occasionally play a game of Family Feud. I've never purchased an episode of Family Feud.
I don't remember ever clicking on any of the ads on Facebook. If I have, it's been less than 10 times.
Basically, I have never given a single cent to Facebook, or frequented any of its advertisers. Nor do I plan to.
I'm sure I'm not alone.
So Goldman Sachs values it at $50 billion because why? Obviously there's a reason; it's just not obvious to me.
I'm assuming my info is being sold, but what else? There must be more that meets the eye.
P.S. Ditto for Twitter.
P.S.S. I don't get the big deal about The Social Network. Was aight. Oscar caliber? Please.
you're not giving them money, but
ReplyDeleteyou are helping FB make money.
advertisers don't pay FB every time you click on an ad. FB gets paid every time you load your home page/stream/whatever the fuck it's called, and a set of ads pops up, since they've delivered the ad to you, whether you click or not.
you're not a customer of Facebook. you're the product. your eyeballs and clicks are what's being sold.
all that said, i also think you and i are in the minority of people who don't click on ads, don't use Farmville or Vampireville or anything else that's a vehicle for more ads, and streaming ads to our friends. if those things didn't work to serve up ads, they'd go away.
yeah, we're all barcodes in the excess of corporate greed and popularity. I don't get it. But the thousands of teeny boppers caught in the network seem to make us all a part of it. Also, employers and their readiness to "background check" their future workers by browsing our likes and beliefs makes it much more worthwhile to the almighty dollar.
ReplyDeleteyeah, i suppose my first comment was more adbusters-like than i intended.
ReplyDeleteanother thing to keep in mind is that the value of something isn't necessarily what you or i would pay for it, but what anyone would pay for it.
so, there's some marketing company out there who'll pay 50 million dollar for it? it's worth 50 million.
i can think of a few million other things i'd rather see that money go towards, but i'm not in the business of selling ads.
I guess that all makes sense. I just don't see any advertisements of note there. Like right now, there's just an ad telling me how effective an ad on Facebook can be and for something called Bonobos. It's not like I see any actual legit businesses advertising. It doesn't seem all that different from myspace.
ReplyDeleteAs to the point that things are worth what people are willing to pay - that's VERY true, and smacks of the real estate bubble. We've been down this overvaluation road before (pets.com, etc), and I guess we people just never learn.