Soon, Facebook users may find themselves having to pay to get a message out to someone not on their friends list. In what appears to be yet another ridiculous attempt to generate revenue for Facebook, the social network is testing a new add-on to their messaging system that charges users.
Facebook has the ability to, and should make money for itself, but not at the expense of the average user.
On Dec. 20, 2012 Newsroom.fb.com was updated with a post letting users know that it is testing out yet another way to turn a profit from its product. Some users soon will have to pay a fee of $1 to message other users that aren’t on their friends list.
Facebook claims this new messaging system is to cut down on the amount of fraudulent messages, known as spam, from reaching the everyday user, but this is just another attempt in a long line of schemes to rescue its IPO, which has had a lackluster performance since it went public last May. While this update to the Facebook messaging system may curb spam, it also puts a price on open communication between average Facebook users.
In the past, Facebook has attempted to make revenue off of its users by adding paid features, such as “promote,” which allows users to pay a fee to have their post placed higher up on their friends newsfeed.
I was shocked to find out that not only has Facebook put a price on communication between users, but it’s also put a price tag on messaging Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, this is where it gets really absurd. It’ll cost you $100 to message Mr.Zuckerberg… that’s right, $100, and this doesn’t even guarantee he’ll read your message. All it will do is make sure your little message doesn’t get placed in his other(junk) folder.
So even after you foolishly throw away a hundred bucks, you still won’t get Zuckerberg to “like” you.
The proposed messaging fee affects several aspects of the site used daily and certainly will be a burden on Sooner sports fans.
If you ever check the “football tickets” section of OU’s student Facebook you may know that quite often when you want to buy a ticket to a game you may have to message the seller in order to get a price. I would hazard a guess that most people don’t in fact know the seller, so it’s entirely possible that users would have to pay a Facebook “ticket tax” in order to buy a football ticket, or stop using the OU ticket section all together.
To be fair, I think this is a pretty interesting way to combat the spam messages that wind up in my message box far too often, and according to Facebook, “Several commentators and researchers have noted that imposing a financial cost on the sender may be the most effective way to discourage unwanted messages and facilitate delivery of messages that are relevant and useful,” though they don’t cite where any of this information comes from in their article.
Facebook understandably has to find a way to generate money, but the last several attempts at doing so have left users feeling sore and used. Facebook should be profiting off its mobile platform and impose usage fees on large companies, but the everyday user shouldn’t fall victim to ridiculous user fees, or Facebook may find many of its users flocking back to Myspace or Friendster.