
What Walmart, Facebook, and Credit Cards Have in Common - messel
http://www.victusspiritus.com/2010/07/15/what-walmart-facebook-and-credit-cards-have-in-common/
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michael_dorfman
So, in other words, what Walmart, Facebook and Credit Cards have in common is
that in each case, many of the end-users don't understand the business model?

Put another way: to what extent is it a "hidden" cost to say that Facebook is
ad-supported, or that credit cards charge late fees?

I'm also not sure the criticism of Facebook is fair. What does this paragraph
mean, really?

 _The aggregation of user generated content is a well known maneuver for web
businesses. Why fight to generate content when users can do a better job of
entertaining themselves. While I believe this is a good idea in theory, the
practice of taking the vast majority of that collective value is questionable
at best_

Facebook is not pretending to generate content, any more than Gmail is.
Facebook offers a channel for me to communicate with my friends. My friends
and I supply the content, Facebook provides the pipes. I, for one, don't mind
that it's ad-supported; if they had a "premium" ad-free version for a small
fee, I suppose I'd consider it, depending on the fee, but I can't say it would
be a big priority.

I'm also not impressed by the argument about data portability: _This is the
equivalent of changing mobile service providers but not being able to call
your friends._ It's not, really. It's more like the early days of the
telephone (or email), where you could only communicate with those friends of
yours who were already on the network. Complaining about the lack of
portability is more like complaining "I am giving up my mobile phone. Why
can't my friends still call me?"

