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?
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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.
Comment by Dan Jones — November 13, 2007 @ 5:27 am
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.
Comment by Dan Jones — November 13, 2007 @ 6:27 am
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.
Comment by Chris Kennedy — November 13, 2007 @ 6:28 am
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.
Comment by Joe Grossberg — November 13, 2007 @ 6:34 am
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.
Comment by Joe Grossberg — November 13, 2007 @ 7:34 am
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.
Comment by Chris Kennedy — November 13, 2007 @ 10:28 am
Thanks for posting this, Nick.I wrote an open letter to Facebook here about this on Saturday:http://tinyurl.com/yvxurxCool 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.
Comment by Chi-chi Ekweozor — November 14, 2007 @ 3:31 pm
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.
Comment by Chi-chi Ekweozor — November 14, 2007 @ 4:31 pm
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…
Comment by Daz — March 17, 2009 @ 5:29 am
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
Comment by Adam Lempriere — March 23, 2009 @ 4:22 am
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.
Comment by Stephen Bateman — April 13, 2009 @ 7:25 am
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.
Comment by Lee Lewis — June 3, 2009 @ 8:37 am
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
Comment by mike smith — November 3, 2009 @ 12:43 am
charging people to use facebook is outrageous,if they want to make more money they should add an advertising page and sell add space or something that allows people to buy music from the site anything than force people to pay if they start charging people will just move to another site offering the same or more, leaving facebook worse off, loosing money.
Comment by Richard Weaver — January 21, 2010 @ 11:55 am
im not paying 3.99 a month for facebook have been on here since the begining if you want to charge somebody charge new registers,not the patrons that have been here from the start
Comment by scott holtz — January 29, 2010 @ 1:53 pm
No, I would not pay $3.99 a month for Facebook. Fairly new register or not! Your advertisements can be informative too the consumer(s) at times. Does not bother me as long as the advertisers are up front about their sales. No hidden catches…Or the best sales advertisements: FREE- until you open up the site & read the fine print…
Comment by CHRIS HORNER — February 3, 2010 @ 4:17 pm
i would definately not pay 3.99 for facebook
Comment by cynthia — February 22, 2010 @ 12:22 am
Think about this though: Even if 4% of people would pay to use facebook, it would be worthless to them. If I lost 95% of my friends because they wouldn't pay, then I would have no one to talk to. Why would I pay 4 dollars a month to only be able to talk to 4% of my friends? Facebook might get people to pay for the first month or so but once they realize none of their friends are paying then they won't either. By doing this, I think Facebook will make a huge mistake and make a lot of people angry.
Comment by Eric — March 15, 2010 @ 6:19 pm
If we have to start paying £3.99 to get on facebook am going back to the old bebo again…..facebook is only started getting really popular why ruin it by making people pay???
Comment by Claire — April 4, 2010 @ 1:41 pm
That's stupid, considering that there are Firefox apps that block out *all* advertisements for free. Only idiots would pay for a free service, and it's highly unlikely that there are 100 million people who are stupid enough to pay for the aforementioned free service, and also don't have more intelligent friends to clue them in.
Comment by Dandan — April 7, 2010 @ 3:33 am
I Heard (on Facebook) That We Would Have To Pay To IM And Upload Videos Starting July 2010. Is This True?
Comment by Lizzy — April 25, 2010 @ 3:36 pm
I'm not going to pay to use Facebook, that's crazy when you can use yahoo.com and don't get charged not only that alot of people only use it for the games and who is gonna pay that kind of money out for a game. We already have to pay for the use of the internet. All it boils down too is greed
Comment by Dawn — May 1, 2010 @ 7:15 pm
i dont absolutely need it i will not pay its not tht important if we could do without it for the time tht we did untill it came i think everyone can do without it now…i know i can!!!
Comment by John Coleman Jr. — May 9, 2010 @ 5:54 pm