As the social media giant explores its options, public interest in a paid version of Facebook may prove quite limited.
Given the platform’s ongoing struggle to regain user trust in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica revelations, Bloomberg recently reported “there’s more internal momentum to pursue” launching a paid, ad-free version of the site.
There may be reason for that momentum to stall. A new survey of 1,163 Facebook users from market research firm Alpha found an overwhelming lack of enthusiasm for such an option.
When asked, “Imagine you logged into Facebook and saw the following pop-up. Which option are you most interested in?” a full 79 percent of users selected “Free option: See ads from third-party partners.” Twenty-one percent selected “Pay $1 per month for ad-free experience.”
Users were even less likely to prefer the paid experience when it applied only to certain services offered by the platform, like one-to-one messaging, seeing and registering for events, and seeing and joining groups. For messaging, 84 percent of users said they would “probably leave Facebook” if a charge were to be implemented, while 16 percent said they would pay $1 per month. That ratio was 87 to 13 percent for events, and 84 to 16 percent for groups.
As Facebook grapples with the fallout from a spring of bad press, and another election season kicks into gear, executives are under pressure to make changes. Rather than keeping or attracting users, offering a paid version of the platform may actually be counterproductive for Facebook. Just think: Longtime users are accustomed to a free product, and they already feel as though a company broke their trust in delivering that product (whether or not that’s true). Suddenly, they are hit with a fee. How would you react? It’s easy to understand why that might feel like an unfair punishment.
To be clear, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to always offer a free version of the site. But paying to keep their personal information away from third parties is something users don’t seem willing to do, so Facebook might need to go back to the drawing board on this one.
