13 Comments »My friend Dan Peguine sent me a screenshot of an interesting sponsored poll he saw last night. The question posed to the survey recipients was “Would you pay $3.99 a month to not ever see ads on Facebook?” A whopping 95% said no and 4% responded yes. This compares to statistics that Marshall Kirkpatrick published last night suggesting that 11% of YouTube users would be willing to pay for an adless version of YouTube.
You could argue that this survey was flawed given that the question didn’t simply ask if users would pay, it asked a specific amount. Thus, had you switched the monthly amount to $1.99 the numbers could have been significantly different. Additionally, sponsored polls are asked to between 250 and 1000 users. Depending on the number asked, the polls could be statistically irrelevant. I was going to attempt to create a different poll with a more objective question but I didn’t feel like spending $250 just to test out my theory.
Personally, at present Facebook ads are not extremely invasive. If Facebook decides to increase their advertising levels to be similar to MySpace, my opinion might rapidly change. Would you pay for an adfree version of Facebook?
I already have an ad-free Facebook, and I don’t have to pay for it.
In the days of Adblock Plus, it’s silly to have a subscriber version that ONLY removes the ads. There must be some other value-added feature.
I already have an ad-free Facebook, and I don’t have to pay for it.
In the days of Adblock Plus, it’s silly to have a subscriber version that ONLY removes the ads. There must be some other value-added feature.
In terms of pure sampling error, the margin of error for that poll at 250 people is +/- 2.7%, and +/- 1.4% if 1,000 people were sampled. What would be more interesting is to see the demographic breakdowns so that they could understand which users were more likely to pay.
Nick:
Whatever … $50/year from 4% of Facebook users is still a lot of revenue — $100M a year and growing rapidly, if you accept the 50M member estimate.
And that’s on top of any ad revenue.
Dan:
I love ABP, but it only works if there is a pattern to the ad filenames. If FB is smart, and cares about the tiny number of people who use FF and ABP, they’ll put all their advertising images in http://static.ak.facebook.com/images/ and use random filenames.
In terms of pure sampling error, the margin of error for that poll at 250 people is +/- 2.7%, and +/- 1.4% if 1,000 people were sampled. What would be more interesting is to see the demographic breakdowns so that they could understand which users were more likely to pay.
Nick:
Whatever … $50/year from 4% of Facebook users is still a lot of revenue — $100M a year and growing rapidly, if you accept the 50M member estimate.
And that’s on top of any ad revenue.
Dan:
I love ABP, but it only works if there is a pattern to the ad filenames. If FB is smart, and cares about the tiny number of people who use FF and ABP, they’ll put all their advertising images in http://static.ak.facebook.com/images/ and use random filenames.
Thanks for posting this, Nick.
I wrote an open letter to Facebook here about this on Saturday:
http://tinyurl.com/yvxurx
Cool to see it’s someone’s asking the question, at least.
@Joe Grossberg:
Agreed, 4% may not be much but it’s still a guaranteed revenue stream…
@Chris Kennedy:
I agree, I don’t think the sample is representative.
I’m willing to bet I’m not in the demographic covered by that poll, not being a student and all that.
Perhaps the poll should be re-run and targeted towards the ‘Facebook-is-the-new-Linked-In’ crowd.
Would be interesting to see what busy, middle manager types think of receiving and inadvertently sending social ads.
Thanks for posting this, Nick.
I wrote an open letter to Facebook here about this on Saturday:
http://tinyurl.com/yvxurx
Cool to see it’s someone’s asking the question, at least.
@Joe Grossberg:
Agreed, 4% may not be much but it’s still a guaranteed revenue stream…
@Chris Kennedy:
I agree, I don’t think the sample is representative.
I’m willing to bet I’m not in the demographic covered by that poll, not being a student and all that.
Perhaps the poll should be re-run and targeted towards the ‘Facebook-is-the-new-Linked-In’ crowd.
Would be interesting to see what busy, middle manager types think of receiving and inadvertently sending social ads.
I think most people would choose to live without it… I use it and think it’s great, but on too many occasions I find I could due without the distraction that it provides. I certainly wouldn’t pay for it…
Interesting stuff, it’s funny to see the discussion that’s ensured, I have people emailing me convinced it’s going to be mandatory to pay just from a couple of rumours (however well founded)
Polls are great but what people say vs. what they do can be quite different in the online world, belive me I have to create websites often based on what they ’say’
You’re also forgetting without doubt the most influential factors in users not wanting to fork out $4, the fact the user has to fork over financial details (alarm bells on an open source site or any site for that matter) and the reluctance for people to pay for anything on the web (as you seem to be able to get whatever you want or get around whatever you want with ease)
As you say the ads are not really invasive, they’d have to offer more features or something to get any real buy-in
Well about financial details, Facebook has already received *tons* of people’s financial cred to pay for “Gifts.” Millions of those have been purchased, meaning they already have a significant base of active users with payment on file.
If I have to pay for any site for any reason, I am simply not budgeted for it. I not only will not, I cannot. That simple.
no way should you have to pay for this if we do everyone will be forced to use twiiter are my space and you can play yoville by going to http://www.yoville.com