Forum Post: Are OWS forums worth $28 a user? If not, why not? If so, what then?
Posted 12 years ago on April 11, 2012, 2:03 p.m. EST by mserfas
(652)
from Ashland, PA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I just read http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17666032 , which described Facebook's buyout of a pointless "App" with zero income named Instagram for one BILLION dollars. It describes the transaction as Facebook buying out a competitor and most importantly buying a set of users at $28 a user. The article says that Facebook itself (which somehow makes money) is worth $118 a user.
The question this brings to mind, of course, is the vast profusion of Occupy web sites, starting here but spreading out in every direction to cities all over the world. A huge number of users reading these things. Yet the feeling is as if running these websites is a mere chore, not a way to make money.
Why not? Isn't there a whole counterculture full of useful products and services that could advertise? Aren't there countless other publications to funnel users into? I would think that these sites would be able to mint money by the same magic as Facebook. And really, the basis of all money seems to be magic - sometimes I'm not sure if it's stage magic or the real deal, but things like Bitcoin and the "Million Dollar Homepage" use the same inexplicable arts by which great states put ink on paper despite their debts and turn it into the means of social control.
Think of all the websites and forums people visit, which we so often assume are without value. Is there a way by which the free, open, uncensored, unintimidated conversations of people serving their own purposes can, by collective leaderless action, without shaman or CEO to guide them, nonetheless create significant amounts of wealth for the common people?
FB makes its money through advertising and selling its user's data to marketers and God knows who else (like the US gov). No magic there. Some people, in fact, view FB as nothing short of a huge data mine for the "powers that be."
You don't understand the way facebook monetizes their users. They don't market Adele's latest CD to someone because it's popular and she just won a bunch of grammys. They market it to someone because they know that user is a 22 year old female that makes about $36,000 per year, spends about $23 per month on music, owns an iPod 4g, recently moved from the small Ohio town where she went to college to Indianapolis, where she works as a junior librarian and primarily spends her Friday nights watching Storage Wars.
If you don't have the sense to be terrified by that, I don't know what to tell you.
Like facts said, somebody owns it, somebody maintains it, they're doing a good job.
UNLIKE facts said, I absolutely don't want the people that run this site to give away ANY information about their users. This is the first (and potentially last) bastion of modern political dissent in our country. This is what connects us. This is what clarifies our message and our actions.
This is also what could make us defendants, prisoners or worse if things go bad.
Please don't collect data on users, and please don't share the data you have with ANYONE.
I'm on the map of Occupiers.
I trust you.
Well I don't mean I want them to sell my info, though I would think it's pretty cheap given how many people have it.
If they want me I'm not hard to find, but I understand your point.
Along the lines you openned up, wait till we all get google glasses and they tell evrywhere you are and everything you look at and everything you hear/say. I saw an early verison of this in a TED vid, a few years back and did not sound so bad then, but as you point out, there's a lot of power in this stuff.
somebody owns it, somebody maintains it,
they're doing a good job,
if they figure out how to make a buck without making me play a stupid game, I'm ok with that
if they use the money to make things better, even better