U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

Re:U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison R... by ilovecaching on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @05:45PM (#19323721)

The problem with the non ad driven model is that to you 5$ might be nothing, but some people 5$ is an impossible sum of money to spend a month on entertainment. Ads allow companies to offer first world products to customers who could desperately use technology to help them connect and trade in their local communities.

I think the discussion on privacy and ad based platforms should really be orthogonal.

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Re:U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison R... by JohnFen on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @07:01PM (#19324290)

> I think the discussion on privacy and ad based platforms should really be orthogonal.

Except that those two things are inseparable. The privacy problems are a direct result of the desire of the advertising industry to be able to target people based on their behavior, which necessitates spying on everyone.

If we could somehow eliminate that targeting, then we could discuss the two as separate topics.

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Re:U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison R... by tjoff on Thursday March 07, 2019 @02:22AM (#19326173)

They really aren't though. It's just that that is the stance the big players have. And the reason they have that stance might be because it is the only stance that can motivate their existence.

You can still target content rather than users.

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Re:U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison R... by JohnFen on Thursday March 07, 2019 @11:47AM (#19329552)

> You can still target content rather than users.

Indeed you can. By "inseparable", I don't mean technically inseparable, I mean that the advertising industry has decided that personally targeted ads are the only sort of value. That means that, unless there is some sort of sea change in the industry, the two things are inseparable in practice.

If I see an ad, I can safely assume that it comes with spying. I'll be right far, far more often than I'll be wrong.

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Re:U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison R... by hopler on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @06:27PM (#19324052)

Facebook could charge different prices in different geoip zones, like IP licensing does.

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Re:U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison R... by ilovecaching on Thursday March 07, 2019 @01:42PM (#19330810)

That's difficult, because in some cases the barrier to entry is having some way to pay. They might be able to afford 10 cents, but they don't have any means to submit that 10 cents into the system. They don't have a credit or debit card, probably not even a bank account to begin with.

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Re:U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison R... by Firadeoclus on Thursday March 07, 2019 @10:07AM (#19328563)

The value of ads is related to the spending power of those advertised to. If $5 is an impossible sum to spend for a user, advertising to them is worth very little as well.

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Re:U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison R... by ilovecaching on Thursday March 07, 2019 @01:41PM (#19330789)

The idea behind Facebook isn't to sell ads, it's to build a social platform for everyone. Sure, those people aren't spending a ton of money yet, but they still deserve to have access to the internet and major services.

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