[AlexandrB]

The pricing reminds me of when contractors quote 2-3x normal for jobs they don't want to do. I'm sure Facebook is expecting that 99.99% of people will just agree to tracking and in a few years they can shutter the paid tier as an "unsuccessful experiment".

[lotsofpulp]

I would say the opposite. The people who are able and willing to pay are worth the most to advertise to. So if Facebook wants to maintain revenue, it has to set the ad free price high because they are losing their most valuable product, richer people’s attention.

[mk89]

I am not sure they are their most valuable product to be honest. They make money with literally anybody on the planet.

[Enginerrrd]

That's exactly it.

It's a bit more complicated, in that creating and maintaining all the payment processing infrastructure is a huge hassle to make without recouping sufficient cost per user. There's still not really a good option for microtransactions and it's a big problem.

But... There's no way on earth Facebook is making $14/mo off me in adds. It's just not even close. I'd be happy to pay if the value were anywhere close to a match, but it's just not. I mean, that's en par with streaming services and youtube. If Facebook thinks they're even in the same order of magnitude as far as content quantity and quality as that, they're delusional.

If I had to guess an actual fair value for the average user, it'd be around $3-5/mo max. For me personally, it can't be more than $1-2/mo. But maintaining all the payment infrastructure for that when any amount deters most users is pointless. Companies always price these non-free tiers really high.

[mk89]

I think it's more like "in order to match my megaprofits, you need to give me this". I really believe they make a lot or money with custom ads - I don't have data though.