It's true that it's unlikely, but LinkedIn has been able to do something that Facebook hasn't - monetize. Search had been around for a long time, but Google is who made it really profitable. So, there is a chance that this is more like Google and Yahoo circa 2000 where it was underdog Google and flashy Yahoo.
Granted, being able to monetize doesn't matter to your users, but if you keep running through your VC, you eventually can't keep up development at the same pace.
Facebook makes money. They seem to have roughly the attitude that Google did around 2000. I.e. they're making some money, could make more if that was their main focus, but their main focus in the short term is to evolve the site.
Not to say that FB is going to be as big as Google. Outliers on that scale may only appear every couple decades. But they have a similar hackerly vibe.
Let's do an interesting exercise. Facebook has 100 million users. Let's suppose 10% of that user base would be willing to pay a $1.99 to have a premium account (like unlimited number of photo albuns, customizable look&feel etc). That would mean almost $20m dollars monthly revenue, much much larger than their burn-rate. College students don't pay for SMS? Why some of them wouldn't then pay this small amount to Facebook?
Sure, this is a very rough estimation based on old subscription-based business model. A product in a free market operates much differently than if you charge US$ $.01. But it only shows that Facebook has many ways to become successfully profitable. They are only being cautious.
Online Newspaper X has over 20m online readers. Most of them have at some point subscribed to print publications @ $200+ per year. If it was a membership site at just $2 per month, wouldn't they be able to keep some readers? 10%? 5%?.
You're not telling me someone making $80k per year would replace the newspaper she reads every day to to save a few cents a read?
Wouldn't people pay to use google? What if it was just $0.50 a month? or $0.01 per search?
The concept that if people use a site, it's worth money, has not proved itself.
If we are going to look at profitable online communities then look at MMORPGs. It may be outside the realm of facebook and linkedin but there is plenty of profitability to be had beyond myspace clones or even websites.
World of Warcraft takes in 12.99 - 14.99 per user per month and has approximately 10 million active subscribers. Plus additional profits whenever an expansion comes out.
Yes, I agree! We can debate the conversion rates. My whole point is that simply asking whether Facebook will be ever profitable is a simplistic question. They can become profitable already. The question is that there are probably much better ways to monetize their site and typical audience than requiring subscription.
Like PG mentioned, when Google came along, the best way to monetize search engines was to become a "media" portal and pollute browsers with ads and pop-ups.
