Could Facebook Become a Pay Site?

Odds are that if you are under 35, you have at least heard of the social networking giant Facebook, and if you are under 30, you couldn't imagine not having a Facebook. So much of this generation's communication takes place via this social networking site, which is still growing daily. Photos are exchanged, information changes hands, and work is promoted via this service. Facebook has even developed its own internal email-type service, which many in this social networking generation use much more than traditional email.
Leave it all behind?
Facebook has become such a common service for the current generation that, for many, leaving it would not be an option. Social networking has become an integral part of their online lives, and Facebook holds that prominent position of being their lifeline. Understanding this, the question has now arisen: "Would they pay for Facebook?"

For the past few years the social networking platform has generated its revenues from the advertising that is embedded in its sidebars and headers. Now rumors have started even among employees of Facebook as to whether advertising will remain their primary source of income or the website will completely change their profitability strategy.

That's right, folks, the word is that Facebook is considering becoming a pay site.

There is no cause just yet to stand outside Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, CA with pitchforks and flaming torches, as every company needs to reevaluate their profitability from time to time and determine what the best route is to take. According Facebook's own estimates, it has registered nearly 200 million active users worldwide on their social networking site. To put that number into perspective, the United States has a population of near 300 million: Facebook is two-thirds the size of the United States of America.

The concern is real, however, and many people are starting inflammatory Facebook groups and blogging all over the Internet about the coming war that will happen should the social networking giant decide to nickel and dime its denizens for the service to remain as it is.

"But they can't do that to us."
You may want to stand up and say that the social networking platform can't make that shift, but the reality of it is that they can. The sovereign nation of social networking is well within its rights to charge whatever they want for people to use their service.

To make things even more complicated, Facebook has a captive audience. Many people have uploaded their entire lives onto the social networking platform: pictures, blogs, notes, friends, everything. For some people, leaving Facebook out of principle would be like leaving an old friend to die rot in the corner, or taking years of personal journals and their personal Rolodex out to the woodpile and burning it all.

The younger generation lives on Facebook, and many of them would pay for the service should it ever come to that.

Will it really come to that?
Facebook might eventually turn into a pay site, and its users will have to come to grips with that. They don't have to like it, but they will have to accept it should the shift happen. Either that, or they can forsake the social networking giant altogether.

If there is any ray of light, it is that the likelihood of Facebook charging an arm and a leg for their service is very slim. Facebook thrives because of the number of people who connect through their service, and alienating those people would render the service useless.

The greater possibility is that they might still charge, but the charge would be inexpensive in order to maintain their client base and not drive their citizens away. However, only those who work at the top levels of the company know what will become of their business, and the rest must wait patiently for their answer.

Sources:

Facebook Statistics