[charlie_joslin]

But I think examples like Sparrow (Mail app) represent the idea that if you make it obvious that it's worth paying for, people will do it.

Maybe if they had a freemium system. It starts off free but if you want no ads and more features you pay $X/month. A user could lobby friends to make the jump to the paid version.

[cstross]

You just described LJ's model. It didn't work well (outside of Russia).

[youssefsarhan]

It could simply be, that it was too early for LiveJournal? Back then – admittedly, now in many ways – the idea of a social network was new. It's value had yet to be proven at that time. However, with almost 1 Billion people on Facebook the value of such a network has been proven.

However, while I say 'I want to pay for Facebook' I'm really saying I want to pay for a service that allows me to keep in touch with my friends and nothing else. Not a service that allows me to keep in touch with my friends while also selling my data, and the problems that go with that.

I wrote a very short thought on this idea:

http://sefsar.com/post/19716868388/the-last-word