Would You Pay To Access Social Networks Sites?

October 31, 2008


Strange as it seems,  Facebook may soon need to borrow money to keep up its frantic pace of growth.

It’s funny,  we don’t tend to think of how free social networks are actually run, just that they’re always there and waiting for us for free.  But  Techcrunch pointed out today that while Facebook has more users than ever, the costs of actually running the site is getting higher than ever, too-it costs millions a month to power Facebook.

Facebook relies (among other things) on ad revenue to keep the site going and apparently, it isn’t enough.   But they might not be the only social network site with this problem.

Most social networking sites rely on this kind of revenue model and, as time goes by, it might not be enough to cover the costs of offering their services for free.

In a hypothetical future, we might have to start-gasp!-paying to access social network sites.

If that happens, the whole social media model we’ve come to know may collapse.

I don’t think it’s likely to happen-someone, if not Facebook, will figure out a way to successful monetize their social network portal without alienating users-but there may come a time when it’s just not feasible to offer social media services for free.

Would you pay to use a social network site, particularly if it was used by your clients and stakeholders?

Or would the world simply stop using social media if it was no longer free?

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