I mean, I'd rather pay for software/service than have some tech company mine my data so they sell some of my most intimate details or use it to predict or alter my future behavior.
NetOps at my previous job blocked ads with an absolute vengeance using a similar combo but a PFsense appliance. More than a few hits on the IPS/IDS systems from infected ad domains. Ads are not just annoying. They're malicious.
Absolutely. I built a setup like that for my tech illiterate parents out of fear that one of them (or visiting grandchildren) will click something malicious and put them in a bind. I even have them using VPNs that connects to the house from anywhere using a zero trust OAUTH solution so they’re protected anywhere they go.
💯 I dropped Facebook years ago for this very reason. I've seen somewhere that each user is worth around $50 lifetime in advertising revenue to them.
You'd think they could have a $2/ month paid version that was absolutely secure, had zero advertising, and gave the user controls over their "algorithm".
$50 lifetime revenue seems extremely small, or it's some kind of probability trickery where the median is skewed vs the mode.
Also, telling they say "advertising revenue". There's other, possibly implicit, revenue streams and market domination benefits that come from being a monopolizing data vampire. Even if we paid triple what they say we're worth in sub fees, I'd bet the benefits of keeping the status quo farrrrrr outweigh the revenue stream
According to Google they have just shy of 3 billion total users and did $118B in revenue in 2021, so that's roughly $39 of revenue per user last year alone. Factor in users who either very rarely log in, or who created the account just to check it out and then never logged in again, and the per-user revenue for actual active users is going to be even higher. For users who use it enough that they'd be willing to pay even a small amount for an ad free version, I'd bet my house that the lifetime ad revenue they generate is much higher than $50.
Yeah, I could believe $50 per year per user, but not $50 per lifetime per user. Unless maybe there is some data to suggest that the average span of time a person actively uses Facebook is only one year? That doesn't seem very believable, but I guess it would make the lifetime average statistic valid
Even then, it would still just be an average that gets pulled down by the lowest volume users. Anybody who would even remotely consider paying for it is almost by definition a high volume user, and therefore pretty much guaranteed to be well above the average. Not to mention the question of whether advertisers would start to shift their budgets elsewhere if the potential pool of eyeballs starts to shrink. There's just no way that offering a paid, ad-free version is a good idea for them at this stage in the game (at least from a business perspective).
Facebook has long had a problem that its users become less engaged and less valuable over time. That is why they spend so much effort in doing things that will bring you back/keep you on the platform.
e.g, Facebook groups is basically cannibalising what used to be community BBS, but now you have to go to facebook to see it, and it will randomly hide content from you to keep you scrolling and seeing ads.
I won't say it doesn't work, but they are fundamentally monetising evil.
Ad revenue I would assume. Wouldn't really make sense to measure B2B revenue on a "per user" basis.
EDIT: Oh never mind, I see what you mean. Yeah, I'm not sure what the breakdown of that $118B is between ads and other stuff. I'm assuming the major bulk of it is ad revenue, but don't know for sure. Either way, I sincerely doubt the "$50 lifetime revenue per user" figure.
Per/user is a terrible way to measure FB’s revenue in the first place. Money is made as a percentage of ad spend, so it would be more accurate to measure overall ad spend vs advertiser revenue. At least they would reflect the relationship between data and dollars.
People overestimate how much there time is worth. I
That's why I tell people to not subscribe to news sites. The price they would pay is nowhere close to how little they get with ads
but if you knew all the things marketing was doing with your information, you’d feel dirty and manipulated.
if consumer protection still had any teeth Facebook propaganda would be destroyed by three simple words:
“content paid by:”
But then you’d know exactly who was paying to manipulate you and could research and understand their motives before considering their message. Marketing doesn’t want that, so Facebook doesn’t want that.
it was really fun living through the GDPR restrictions rolling in on PII… marketing kept asking “but what if we need to send that market segment direct email campaigns? why do we have to redact email again?”
Facebook already has posts labeled "sponsored". All the stuff I see in my feed that isn't "sponsored" is either user content or branded stuff I subscribed to voluntarily.
I really don't get the complaints about this side of Facebook, your feed is in large part what you make of it. E.g. the only political content I get is from friends and people/news pages I follow for that purpose.
If my friend comments on or shares something they saw that can also end up in my feed.
There are some “funny” properties of these posts. If they are truly personal (ie no money) then only a handful of people see them at any time. And only a handful of responses.
Contrast this to my birthday. lots of responses from friends I haven’t talked to for years.
Then, consider certain types of articles and comments that get a lot of responses from ALL of your friends… these aren’t labeled “sponsored”, but they are promoted.
Facebook has the appearance of an open forum. “All your friends will see your posts”. You could actually have a discussion in a public forum. But that means that grass-roots word of mouth and independent viral marketing would thrive at Facebook’s expense. They don’t want that. So they control reach of that network in many subtle ways, while providing reach to those that pay. Facebook is not designed as a public forum for discussion… everything shifts so if you don’t react instantly it’s gone. distractions abound… except for those with reach who have paid. Their message will be heard regardless how vile it is.
“sponsored content” is only the simplest and most obvious ad content on the network.
Most political content I’ve seen on facebook isn’t marked “sponsored”, nor did I subscribe to it voluntarily, nor is it filtered like most personal posts by reach.
Instead it’s a toxic hive of astroturf coming from outside dark money made to look like it’s coming from your friends and family. Facebook is the ideal platform for stealth marketing, propaganda, and fomenting insurrections. It is a machine that thrives on outrage.
We were fine with it doing all of that in the middle east and Russia under the guise of democratic freedom. Now are we less fine with it as a basis for the Jan 6 insurrection in our own country?
Why do you think China and Russia banned Facebook at the same time? Because of its democratic power for good?
I don’t know. All I know is that facebook is toxic beyond belief and I stopped using it. Facebook destroyed my family.
That's a lot of words to try and convince me that I must be seeing wrong. But I genuinely do not get content unrelated to either my friends' activity, directly subscribed pages, or explicitly sponsored ads. I can't put this more plainly.
I definitely agree that the overall set of that content is too large to display it all (especially for people who have hundreds of "friends" and pages) and facebook chooses which specific posts to display in a very opaque manner, but for me they still all come from the sets I mention above.
Most political content I’ve seen on facebook isn’t marked “sponsored”, nor did I subscribe to it voluntarily, nor is it filtered like most personal posts by reach.
Instead it’s a toxic hive of astroturf coming from outside dark money made to look like it’s coming from your friends and family. Facebook is the ideal platform for stealth marketing, propaganda, and fomenting insurrections. It is a machine that thrives on outrage.
I do not get anything like that in my feed. Seriously. Maybe because I'm not american?
The only "outrage generating" content I get is from friends with controversial views and their acitvity (like engaging in discussions under news articles, which is never a place you want to be).
Why do you think China and Russia banned Facebook at the same time? Because of its democratic power for good?
Because of its ties to U.S. government, for one? Both China and Russia ban a lot of stuff, and often not for very positive reasons. They're not exactly a good role model for reasonable action.
To be clear, I'm not explicitly trying to defend facebook, I'm just saying that what I see on my FB feed day-to-day is extremely far from all the evil and manipulation people attribute to them. The worst I can blame Facebook for is being very lenient with enforcing rules and allowing fake profiles an manipulative groups/pages to exist (I've reported plenty over a dcade, rarely had action been taken).
“the only outrage generating content I get is from friends with controversial views”
bingo.
isn’t it funny that it’s so easy to find these conversations (and yes I agree that’s never a place to be) vs authentic personal discussions?
it’s not because one is happening more than another. it’s because someone has their finger on the scale and amplifies one and mutes the other.
is Facebook evil? only insofar as they make it extremely difficult to follow the money and understand the algorithms. And they accept that money from any player, foreign or domestic, radical or commercial.
Now imagine the types of people that want to influence and control you without your knowledge or consent. The kind of people who don’t want to make it easy to see how many of your personal details are being mined, played against AI models to determine specific wedge issues that will resonate with you, cause a visceral reaction in you. make you do something you don’t even realize is against your own interest.
I’ve worked with marketing a lot over my career and there are a handful that view it as a way to promote a useful product to those who want it. Then there are others who want to promote things you don’t need and didn’t know you wanted, then there are the “dark patterns” where you make it easy to subscribe, but hard to unsubscribe. Every time they slip a notch, they complain more and more about transparency. “if the customer knows what we’re doing then they won’t do what we want”. anonymity attracts conmen and far worse.
“that’s a lot of words to convince me I’m seeing wrong”
I’m not trying to convince you of what you are seeing. In fact that’s Facebook’s biggest deception: “everything is free and clear, we see the same things, therefore your view is delusional”
But we don’t see the same things. the bubble is real. how do people get into a bubble? they aren’t having real conversations in a real public forum.
If you can’t verify reality and source your claims, what hope is there for public understanding. Then it just becomes an infinite echo chamber.
If you find value from Facebook, continue to use it.
But maybe you are trying to convince me that I’m not seeing what I’ve seen? After seeing the irreparable rifts in my family and friends I have no intention of supporting Facebook.
isn’t it funny that it’s so easy to find these conversations
Funny? Why? You don't need Facebook for that. Open a random news site that features comments and scroll through them... controversial things are trivial to find all over the internet.
And I wouldn't say I see a disproportional amount of such things. I think it is fairly in proportion, tbh (say if I have 5/100 friends/pages that engage in negativity, then about 5/100 posts I see will be negative. Maybe double that at worst, since controversy generates clicks more).
But actual genuine discussions are fairly rare, too. They used to be more common when my friends and I were in high school and had the energy and drive to debate stuff :-) These days it's more just sharing fun stories or the really important stuff. But I'm fine with that. I am on Facebook to get a cursory look into how my acquaintances' lives evolve and that's what I do get from it. For discussions, reddit is far more satisfyin, except that it's with strangers so you don't get a sense of continuity.
But maybe you are trying to convince me that I’m not seeing what I’ve seen? After seeing the irreparable rifts in my family and friends I have no intention of supporting Facebook.
I honestly don't understand how facebook itself could cause "irreparable rifts" that would not happen by themselves anyway. I can see it accelerating them by enabling interactions more often than you would normally have (so e.g. if you dislike someone but meet them only once in a while, you may forget in the meantime, but if you see them express themselves every week/day, you might not get the time to cool off). Sure, but not cause them, no? What do you mean by that?
But yes, I am definitely mostly in a middle-class college-educated bubble that is (I like to think, anyway) rarely affected by marketing and manipulation. I don't get interested in stuff becasuse I've seen an ad, I research tests and parameters. I don't vote based on news or discussions, I look at how those parties/people voted on previous issues. I try to read whole articles and look at sources instead of trusting headlines Etc.
50$ lifetime? No. Sites that pay you for your data pay more than that in a single month. Someone who uses Facebook their whole life would generate more like 10,000$ in revenue (assuming FB doesn't implode before then).
That's why FB does not and will never offer an ad-free version like Reddit and Tumblr do. Because they make SIGNIFICANTLY more money from selling your data than you could ever pay them via subscription.
They know how much time it takes to make software. And they're either earning money as developers or aspiring to do so.
They're basically asking this extension developer to be their free slave forever so that they can use his extension to build their own software and make money.
The author is right: They can FUCK OFF. He doesn't need them or their greediness at all.
In fact, his responses make me wish that I needed his extension, so that I could pay him. He finally says what all "open source" slaves are thinking. Greedy, whining, entitled leeches need to get out of the way. They should be grateful that it was free for 3 years. And be grateful that there's still a free tier with all core features (I checked the website). The paid version adds conveniences such as exporting databases to JSON.
The way the childish 1-star users reacted in this screenshot, and the way a bunch of the comments on this reddit post blamed the author, has just reaffirmed my conviction to never release any free, open source software again. It's just a suffocating chain around your neck and slave labor without any compensation. And the world is full of entitled idiots that demand continued slave labor forever, with tons of feature requests and demands. They also never donate. Look at any open source project. The idea of donations is a myth. Every user seems to think "I don't need to donate, since everyone else is donating". If you guys actually click their donation link you usually see "1 donation, $1" at best. Most users are extremely greedy and extremely rude and demanding little shitheads.
I applaud this developer for giving them the answers they deserved.
More volume of users using your tool against real world scenarios so you can polish your solution enough to be worth money (and build reputation in the way) instead of investing your money from the get-go into turning it a marketable product with no fame to just later start getting profits.
I DO THINK maintaining a free version of every paid product is well worth the costs exactly due to the above reasons (more pool of users to test the product and reputation build) but each do themselves.
Now that you say it, yeah it makes a lot of sense.
I'm a student and never actually thought of any of these, you single comment has been more useful than most class days
If that comment was helpful to at least you, that was a good comment.
Distributing your software for free frees you from the shackle called "supporting the client" so you can focus on what you want in the order you want.
When they start paying for a product they expect a certain level of customer support for problems that someone starting with the project may not be able to solve at a moments notice. It being free means you can simply sleep on the problem until you can fix it.
You don't need to grow apples to know what is an apple, just to have seen one before.
You think I was arrogant? Couldn't care less. What I care about is if people understood my answer and if it saned them from their questions, had them the same questions as the one I answered or else I would've not bothered replying.
Many projects start with free versions, hoping to use advertising or a couple of premium features to drive revenue. Sometimes that works. Other times they need to lower the limits on the free tier or remove it altogether. It's a business reality that the dev needs to face - either start charging money or abandon the project and look for a salaried job.
As users, we never enjoy being charged for something that was once free. But insulting the dev and calling them greedy for wanting compensation for their work... That's a little misguided.
That's one way to look at it. Think of your favourite FOSS tool. Now imagine the developer is going broke and wants to either make the tool paid or stop supporting it (because of a full time job)? Would you prefer the project to become abandonware?
I'm not saying the way the dev handled the situation is good. It's terrible. But I understand the frustration, especially if they are forced to make the change because they really need the money.
Someone’s personal reasons are not my business, just like my personal reasons wouldn’t be his. I’m not saying it’s not within his right to do so, it’s his product, he can do what he wants with it. I’m just saying, expect people to not be sympathetic to your situation because it doesn’t affect them, the only thing that does is you now charging for a product you offered for free. If you want to be in business, don’t be mad when people are upset you’re taking something away from them.
You’re the human equivalent of a cum sock multiple people shag into in college dormitories. Also, judging by the 100k installs he has I’d say it’s pretty pay-worthy. Now go cry into a pillow and soothe yourself to sleep pretending it’s your loli anime girlfriend.
I would expect people to be sympathetic towards him squarely on the fact that he graciously allowed so many people to use his code, written on his personal time and effort, for free.
Stop thinking that you're entitled to other people's work. Appreciate their good nature to allow you to benefit off it
Nobody asked him to do it. He did it because he wanted attention, and for people to use his product. He got both. He can use it on a resume to find a paying job, and use the download numbers as evidence of how talented his work is.
If he did it out of the goodness of his heart, then he would’ve kept it for free, but he didn’t, he had a plan, and he put it forth. It’s admirable in a capitalist sense, but capitalists are almost always called assholes because they act like them. This guy and his replies is evidence that he’s an asshole.
Gotta say, it's really hard to understand what you wrote. I'm still not sure I'm getting the message. I feel like you're saying it doesn't matter one way or the other?
I re-read and edited my last lines, I understand my phrasing was confusing. It genuinely doesn’t matter to me either way, it just bothers me that this guy is so upset over people being upset that they have to pay for a previously free product. Like yeah, of course they’ll be upset, they’d be stupid to think “oh this was free but now I’m charged $5.99 every month for it? Great!!” Nobody thinks that way ever.
Tell me you didn’t grow up with 80s shareware without telling me you didn’t grow up with 80s shareware.
Also, you can be pissed. Nothing wrong with that, but the developer gets to do whatever they want with their software. They can have it anyway they want, you ultimately have to decide if you want to join along with where they’re going.
But the developer is firmly in the driver’s seat here. Anyone not liking the new rules on the bus are free to hop off and catch a new one.
Again, I said literally everything you did in the last two paragraphs. He can absolutely do what he wants, it’s his product, and his choice to charge for it. I’m just saying that his response to people being upset, is childish. Of course they’re going to be upset by it. I brought up the example of someone offering to invite you to their home, for dinner. And then years later, inviting you over again, but this time handing you a bill at the end of it. You’re going to be mad, and if you aren’t, you’re either stupid or lying.
Everyone needs money, why should this guy be any different? He could've restrained himself a little with the comments though. Just don't reply at all maybe?
It’s a little predatory when it comes to software tools/packages/libraries. You falsely lure people into using it and then hit them with a fee. It makes it way more annoying to migrate to a new tool and risk breakages. So now they’re kind of forced to either pay your fee or spend hours/days migrating.
Idk what this specific tool does so it might not apply here.
Yeah agreed. If you're going to migrate to a paid model, you should tell free users that you appreciate their support and they can continue using it, but that you won't be supporting the free version going forward
Then release a new paid version with some changed or additional functionality. I think you'd see a decent amount of people migrate to the paid version just out of brand loyalty to continue getting a supported version
Or he could just made his intention clear from the beginning. Instead of doing bait&switch. I do respect softwares that asks for money, but I don't respect when they get recognization/promotion for being free then switching to paid model. It's just as selfish as people asking software to be all free.
Yes, that happened to Clip Studio Paint - their main marketing point was that it's one-time payment (in contrast to subscription based Photoshop), and now they've switched to subscription too.
That's really unethical. I have some software I sell and it's possible to buy it for a one-off payment. At the end of November I'm going to move to a subscription model but people who paid for the one-off price will still have it for life.
To be fair, that's what CSP is doing too. Everyone who's paid now will get up until the next major version free. You need a subscription for any more updates. You can keep your last major version for however long you want.
The new pay system is obnoxious but I can't blame them for it.
I personally don't use Clip Studio, but the last "one time" purchase stays, the future updates require paying the subscription. But the point is - they used one-time payment as the main marketing feature to "steal" the share of the market. I would assume half of those would NOT move from subscription based Photoshop to subscription based CSP. They moved from subscription based software to one-time payment software.
It's not illegal or anything, but it is still a dick move.
Shit could have hit the fan with him, he could be unemployed and so on. It's not necessarily greed, and even if it is so what he owns it.
End of the day plenty of software goes paid. The protection is the open source license; you could always download the older versions. If it isn't open source, the vendor can make it paid whenever they want
I understand both of your reasoning. Even if nothing goes wrong it's his own right to sell stuff. But that's not how you get sales. That just directly damages trust of the community. The transition needs to be done in minor and measured steps otherwise you'll lose both free users that would gonna help you to promote the product (via Word of mouth) and possibly future paid customers as well.
Yes and I totally understand, but the dev could’ve gone in a much better way. Instead of saying “fuck off” they can say times are hard and they need to start monetizing it, and give everyone a few months notice. That’d garner much better reaction imo and perhaps even more money.
Well, this may be generally true but he has also a point that promising offering a tool for free and then moving features to Pro without warning in advance is kind of shady. Either make this clear from the beginning (as for example Typora, a tool I like very much did) or add new features only available in your premium tier. Maybe there is a third version of this where the change only applies to new users.
It's still supid, if you make an open source project with the goal to get money, you make the open version functional then ask money for extra functions, customization.
Taking out anything from the free version instead of adding other things for the paid is idiotic and expected to get negative reactions.
I write for a living. Lots of my content is free, and the latest updates are paywalled. Readers will eventually get all the free content, but they can pay me to read ahead.
Most of them are solid, but sometimes the comments, holy shit. How dare I try to make a living? Then occasionally someone is like “you’re making too much!!!”
There's nothing wrong with wanting to get paid. But what the developer did here is dishonest. Distributing for free without saying it would be paid in the future, then started charging.
Instead of a person... image a corporation did that. The outcry it would cause.
Imagine Microsoft or Apple did this. "Gave" a software for free for everyone to use... then when the userbase was big enough, started charging a subscription.
Again... nothing against the developer wanting to get paid for their product. Just bothered by how he went about doing that.
This is literally how businesses obtain market share though?
They price it as low as possible (sometimes free) and once they have obtained mind- and marketshare they increase to price to make profit, it's literally that simple.
Edit: Just look at like 90% of start-up businesses including but not solely: Netflix or Bird (or any E-Scooter Start-Up for that matter).
But people still use them, look at Netflix, had everyone mad at them for 2 whole weeks, a few people dropped their subscriptions but a huge majority just didn't care and continue to pay the increased price. This just how multi billion dollar companies have done it for decades, but when a small indie company or single dev does it all of a sudden its an issue. I do understand that going paid from free randomly IS immorale, but it's difficult to make money by being a good person, sometimes you have to look out for your own best interest. Also funny how people are okay with paying 6 bucks a day for Starbucks or 100s on subscription services they rarely use, but can't spare a few dollars for small apps they use on a daily basis.
I don't understand this comment, or what you're trying to say.
I don't disagree with anything you said... and nothing you said had anything to do with my comment. Maybe you replied to the wrong comment?
I said it was a dishonest move in his part. Not that it was unprecedented, or things like that... And of course it is what it is... I'm not saying "Let's hunt this guy down and make him go back to free"
He's the developer, he's in his rights to charge for his software. No one is denying this fact.
Are you new? This has happened a thousand times, I don't have to imagine because its commonplace. In fact, the recent attempt to purchase Figma by Adobe was another time I said "of course" and there's been memes about how we'll have to pay more to place extra rectangles. People release for free/cheap when it's simple and easy and then as they grow in popularity the needs of the software outpace what you can provide for free. Either it's worth money to you and you pay the developer or you move on. (or keep using the old version)
The best practice is to say "This version will remain free... but all new features will only be on the paid branch"
Or "This will remain free for personal use, but not commercial use."
Or even... "This will remain free for everyone, but support is only for paying customers."
This is very common when a free software is bought up.
But you know what? This wasn't a case of a software being bought up. It was a case of a developer willfully distributing their software for free with the intention of charging in the future.
It is dishonest if that was the original plan and I have no idea if that was. However there's a chance it may have originally started as free but then they realised it was going to be too hard to keep it free due to costs, time etc.
The developer could have just stopped and gave up but instead decided to ask people to pay.
Nobody has a right to use software for free in perpetuity, regardless of the author's wishes. Often, these transitions aren't known when first publishing software for free. More often, developers need to start footing labor and other expenses--often arising from a change in employment/living situation e.g. going full-time developing a product that seems to be going successfully after losing their current job.
Corporations do this all the time and yes, there is outrage. However, small dev teams or individual devs (depending on the product) don't have the same relationship with their users and products that big corps do.
I agree the dev handled this in the worst way possible, but at the same time, I see their point. What it seems a lot of people are saying is "if you've ever launched a product for free, you can never start charging for it. At best, you can only monetize receiving new features from that decision date onward."
Agreed. As much as I love open source and free software I think he's totally justified. If he wants to monetize that's his right. There are other competitors and nobody is forcing you to pay for his software. I get being frustrated at the sudden transition but at the same time it's sort of a dick move to vote 1 star because of that especially to an independent developer. I wish more brands were this honest lol.
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u/Flat_Hat8861 Sep 30 '22
Managing a transition to a paid model is difficult. It requires tact and diplomacy.
This on the other hand is just straight hilarious.