[tokenadult]

And the Facebook Platform has provided significant value for non-games, too.

Where I come from, "significant value" for a businessperson is defined as earnings (profit). I am aware (from other posts to HN) that some developers of some apps on Facebook, and some advertisers on Facebook, think Facebook is a new environment for their businesses that provides new opportunities to profit. But is that the general experience? Is the Facebook ecosystem as a whole a profitable ecosystem that allows third-party companies hosted on that ecosystem to profit, and meanwhile allows Facebook to profit?

As I have written before here on HN, "Facebook will go the way of AOL, still being a factor in the industry years from now, but also serving as an example of a company that could never monetize up to the level of the hype surrounding it. I used to see friends on AOL. I never felt an obligation to help AOL monetize just because of that. Networks are a dime a dozen. Right now, Facebook is a very convenient network, and I like it. I do not predict that Facebook will make a lot of money because of users like me."