Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions, I’m Ron McKenzie-Lefurgey.
During his congressional testimony, Mark Zuckerberg stated that, quote, There will always be a
version of Facebook that is free, end quote.
This suggested to some people that there was a paid version of Facebook in the works, something
that caused some concern and confusion among Facebook users.
It seems an unlikely move given Facebook's precarious position currently, but what if
we did need to pay for Facebook?
Let's explore.
If you want more What If videos, check out our “Biggest What Ifs” playlist on the
channel.
But first, get ready, it’s time to ask the question: What if You Had to Pay for Facebook?
Of course, as with so many of these lists, the response to a subscription-based Facebook
would depend somewhat on how much we would have to pay.
If the fee was enormous, it would almost certainly doom Facebook, since most people would simply
switch over to other free social media companies.
But if the fee was very small, perhaps a dollar or two, it might make less of a change to
most people, for whom a couple bucks a month wouldn’t be an issue.
However, in this case, it could be that the addition of a fee, regardless of how expensive
it was, would be the last straw that broke the Facebook camel’s back.
With Facebook already dealing with a good deal of trouble in the wake of the Cambridge
Analytica fiasco, people are already looking for excuses to leave.
Most people continue to use Facebook largely because they’ve already spent so much time
on it; it’s there anyway, my stuff is there, my friends are there, so why not use it?
If, however, people needed to take extra steps, and pay actual money, to use this service
that may or may not sell off information to the highest bidder, they would be more likely
to just say screw it and delete it for good.
So, it seems that in this case, it’s very likely that even a very small fee would cause
a significant proportion of people to stop using Facebook.
Of course, there would be some that would remain, but even those who are okay with paying
a fee might leave soon after, since the platform would be much less useful if far fewer people
used it.
It’s great to be able to make connections and stay in contact, but it’s difficult
to connect with people if nobody else uses the website.
Thus, any fee would cause many people to leave the platform, and once they leave, even those
willing to pay the fee would likely move on to other things, leaving Facebook in the dust.
Mark Zuckerberg would have rubbed salt in the users wounds, essentially saying “Hey,
sorry about selling your information, how about you pay us and give us your credit card
information?”
People would not be pleased.
But what would this mean?
Without facebook, where would the users go?
Well, other social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram are already threatening to take
over the space previously dominated by Facebook.
It’s likely that they would simply see a surge in popularity, since those who mainly
used Facebook would shift their social media time over to other platforms, and those who
already used them would probably use them even more.
There could also be a replacement for Facebook that would appear, likely highlighting strict
privacy policies.
It could improve on Facebook’s ideas and platform, and fill in any gaps that might
appear
in
a Facebook-less world.