The social network Facebook, the largest in the world at the moment, suffered and continues to suffer after the scandal Cambridge Analytica, in which the data of millions of users was used by a third company for election manipulation and marketing purposes. Hundreds of thousands of users, including famous names or companies, have deleted their Facebook profiles or pages following this scandal, and Facebook shares have registered historic declines on the stock market.
After this unprecedented internal problem, Facebook is looking for solutions to increase profits and bring new users to the social network. Bloomberg announced on Friday (04.04.2018) that Facebook started doing market studies to introduce a the paid version of the social network. Users who want to pay will receive a ad-free interface.
It is not the first time that Facebook considers this option. And in the past the company expressed its intention to launch such a paid version in the future, but nothing concrete was done. This time, the internal problems of the company impose this option.
Zuckerberg has long considered such an alternative—not to replace the social network’s business model, but to remove a common reason people give for leaving the service. The company generated virtually all its $41 billion in revenue last year by selling ads targeted with user data.
Internal company research in past years concluded consumers wouldn’t be receptive to a subscription option, seeing it as Facebook being greedy and asking for money for something it said would always be free, sources said.
From advertising, Facebook had revenues of more than 41 billion dollars last year. Money made practically from the advertisements displayed to users.
Mark Zuckerberg now wants to offer users an ad-free version of the social network, in exchange for a sum of money that will most likely be paid monthly or annually. In this way, Mark Zuckerberg offers an alternative to the free service but which requires the display of advertisements.
However, it remains to be seen how and when this option will be implemented for users. Many users have already turned their attention to Instagram (the network from the Faceboon Inc. portfolio) or to other social networks.
