We all know users won’t pay enough for a subscription service to make a huge profit that makes the VC happy, makes the founder one of the ten richest people in the country, and supports a ton of offices and salaries in some of the priciest places to live and work.

But the tiny Mastodon server I run for myself, with a total user count in the low triple digits, costs about fifty bucks a month, and the users who are willing to pay cover half of that. I could probably get more of them to cover it if I was more aggressive about asking, but I prefer to keep it super low-key. I could also lower those costs if I felt like putting some work into optimizing it.

It’s not my job, it’s a thing I run on the side and put a few hours of technical work into every few months. I ain’t gonna get rich from it but it gives my friends a nice place to chat on the Internet.

Yeah but the vast majority of Facebook users don't care enough to learn how to use Mastodon. Try asking the average Social Security recipient to use IRC.

I reject the notion that "We all know users won’t pay enough for a subscription service to make a huge profit that makes the VC happy, makes the founder one of the ten richest people in the country etc" because...if you can figure out how to get Grandma to use a federated Mastodon-like service, then you would do just that.

“Hi Mom! We’ve decided to leave Facebook. Jane’s set up our own little substitute. It’s where we’ll be posting all the pictures of the kids from now on. I’ve written up the basics in this letter; if you have any questions we can talk about it when I see you next week.

— Suzy <3”

I don’t think what you describe is a good experience. You provide a benefit for hundreds of people, but can’t even get 25 dollars a month in return.

Contrast this with real life hobby groups, and service groups, where you can more easily raise money to cover costs.

I’m giving something to my friends. This makes them happy, and it makes me happy to see them happy. I’ve made a few new friends because of this, I’ve gotten to know some acquaintances better too. I am richer in my connections.

There’s a low-key buzz of occasional thanks and favors in my life that I wouldn’t get if I wasn’t doing this, either. And occasionally this connection lets one of my friends help out another who needs it, financially or emotionally, when they wouldn’t even necessarily be contact with each other, much less interested in helping out, without the shared space I’ve created.

I think this is a great experience.

(Total active user count is more like a few dozen, btw.)

Perhaps if people aren’t willing to pay for it the service isn’t that valuable after all.

I see two problems with this. First of all, the service Facebook provides isn't valuable at all unless all your friends and family are also using it and posting content. So unless you can get a critical mass of users to switch to a new platform with a different business model, it won't succeed. Secondly, we've become accustomed to not having to pay for social media, and asking to pay for a social media platform is a little like asking to pay for air. Sure, yours might not have as much pollution, but I can get something almost as good for free.

I've actually experienced the latter, as I looked for an alternative to Gmail. I just found it hard to justify paying for an email provider, where the only real value add to me is the absence of ads, and not being Gmail. And really, the price is mostly irrelevant. For me to be willing to pay _anything_, it would have to have a really compelling reason to move. The value of not seeing ads is just not that high for me. And I don't think you would say there isn't value in an email provider.

I use Fastmail for my important email because I want to be paying a company to take me seriously as a customer. They’re not going to just lock me out of my account because of some random abuse trigger elsewhere in their system. You’re probably not seeing the value because the bad thing hasn’t happened to you yet, but it might and when it does there’s not much recourse.

Perhaps if people don't find a service valuable, then we should everyone to stop using it.

If that argument sounded absurd to you, it's probably because it is. The services are valuable because people ultimately do use them — a lot of them, even. They pay for them indirectly by agreeing to look at ads.

There are loads of services we do not directly pay for, like the fire department and the public library — and yet they are immensely valuable.

The argument sounds nonsensical because it’s missing a verb.

I don’t agree that just because people will use a free thing that means it has a lot of value. Note I didn’t say that FB has no value, just that it might not be as valuable as one might think.

Considering most of their value is their messenger platform I don’t think FB is really worth much at all beyond their social graph.

> The argument sounds nonsensical because it’s missing a verb.

That's a typo on my part — it doesn't change the veracity of the argument.

> I don’t agree that just because people will use a free thing that means it has a lot of value. Note I didn’t say that FB has no value, just that it might not be as valuable as one might think.

Sure, but how do you measure the "true" value? If you can answer that question, you will probably become a billionaire.

> Considering most of their value is their messenger platform I don’t think FB is really worth much at all beyond their social graph.

What are you basing this on? You may only find the messenger platform to be valuable, but how do you know how others perceive the FB platform/product?

I’m going on what I’ve observed in FB users around the world. Their most dedicated users are people in developing countries whom they have convinced that Facebook is the internet.

People do pay for Facebook, by being exposed to ads.