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Facebook Test Will Let You Message Strangers For $1
Spy Handler writes "According to PC Mag, 'Facebook is testing a feature that will let select users pay $1 to send messages to people with whom they have no connection on the social network. The $1 fee will open a thread with a non-Facebook friend. If that person replies to your note, you won't have to pay again to respond to them.' Facebook explained the test thus: 'Several commentators and researchers have noted that imposing a financial cost on the sender may be the most effective way to discourage unwanted messages and facilitate delivery of messages that are relevant and useful. This test is designed to address situations where neither social nor algorithmic signals are sufficient. For example, if you want to send a message to someone you heard speak at an event but are not friends with, or if you want to message someone about a job opportunity, you can use this feature to reach their Inbox. For the receiver, this test allows them to hear from people who have an important message to send them.'"
Seems to me that I should be able to let anybody contact me and I can opt in to people being charged a dollar to contact me. I don't want to make long lost friends pay to send me a message but I can see how some people might appreciate this. Also, Facebook isn't doing anything worth $1 to get this money and it's an (in)convenience fee so this money should go to a charity or something, right?
How does Facebook deserve this money?
My work here is dung.
Since you are now selling access to me, why am I not getting a fiscal benefit as a result?
Is this different from Linkedin's paid messages as those are work/career context that has a precedent?
Is this different from Postal mail?
Someone copied Bill Gates' 1995 book "The Road Ahead," where he predicted charging fees to the senders.
The suggestion was to charge a tenth of a penny per email. For regular folks who email, that works up to less than a penny per day. (No fees for business emails from private or hosted exchange servers, of course.) This would discourage spam emails and mass marketings from public accounts (although it wouldn't stop spam from zombie email accounts on private domains.)
A dollar per message should be enough to discourage irresponsible spamming.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
How does Facebook deserve this money?
Because they say so?
If I can already send message to most people I'm not connected to, as long as they dont have their profile set super secret mode....this does almost nothing. So I can only assume then that the main point of this "feature" is that it WILL go to those super secret ultra private profiles, thus invalidating the settings and desires of said person.
So ya. Spammer paradise.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
They don't. Facebook are greedy cunts.
Wrong. Try again. Facebook has always been and should forever remain free, and you should have been able to message everyone regardless of connection in the first place. Stupid.
I don't want to make long lost friends pay to send me a message
They can send you a friend request at no charge.
Seems to me that I should be able to let anybody contact me
I believe that's called making your e-mail address public.
How does Facebook deserve this money?
They're managing to convince people to pay it. Naturally!
They "deserve" it because it is their service and someone is willing to pay.
Seriously, though the word "deserve" doesn't belong in financial discussions where there are willing parties on both ends. I make four times as much as a social worker. Do I "deserve" more than my overworked sister-in-law who works with troubled youth? No. But I do. The fact is that my skill set is valued by the market more than hers. Sad fact of life. Tiger Woods makes eleventy-billion times what I do. For hitting a damn white ball with a stick. does he 'deserve' more than me? Nope. Sad fact of life.
If some idiot is willing to pay $1 to Facebook, then Facebook deserves that $1 and the guy paying it deserves to be $1 poorer.
-- MyLongNickName
As much as I am not a fan of Facebook (or on it at all), they run the hardware and wrote the software. You were the one willing to sign up to be their product and agree to their contract. Any right you had to complain already got clicked away.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
How is providing a service that costs billions of dollars in infra structure not doing anything?
"Several commentators and researchers have noted that imposing a financial cost on the sender may be the most effective way to discourage unwanted messages and facilitate delivery of messages that are relevant and useful."
Translation
"Money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money."
Give me the option to turn off the receipt of all that are not from my Facebook friends, regardless of how much money Facebook is making off the sending of those messages.
I hope there's a way to block this. For example, the following $1 message comes to mind:
"Hi, I'm the one who was sent to prison due to your testimony about me repeatedly beating your daughter while she lived with me. I just wanted to let you know that I've been released and am thinking of you. Much love!"
I'm assuming there will be some sort of bulk discount for businesses.
Before: Facebook keeps your contact information private only allowing people to contact you that you have approved.
Now: Facebook keeps your contact information private only allowing people to contact you that you have approved or have paid us.
Yeah, there is no way that new policy won't be abused.
So am I.
They can send me as many unsolicited messages as they like if I get paid 50c for every one.
That's only fair, I think.
Trust The Computer, The Computer is your friend.
You don't have to pay facebook anything to "block" these messages. All you have to do is stop logging in to facebook.
They do not, of course. It's all about the money. If they truly wanted to punish spammers, it would be a system more like this:
1. You pay $1 to send message to someone with no connection on your social network.
2. If that someone acknowledges that the message as legit (sender may be a long lost friend, or maybe a polite non-spam email), then you get $1 refunded, so it would not have cost you anything. Essentially, you go out on a limb with $1 to reach that person and let that person judge if you had bothered/spammed them.
3. If the recipient does not do anything, or even marks the message as spam, then the sender would lose that $1, and the $1 goes to the recipient, as he is being compensated for having to deal with spammers.
So for $1 can I or can I not send random folks goatse?
Because that might just be worth creating a facebook profile for.
I expect spammers to start using stolen credit cards to send spam. In the end it will cost the CC owners and their banks money while FB most likely gets to keep the money. Depends if the banks force a charge back or not. Sometimes they do and sometimes they write it off and wait fro the government to give them money.
I wish email were like that.
Pay me to read your spam FTW!
so basically instead of blocking spam they are just forcing these people to do targeted advertising. With all the information advertisers have on users this should be no problem
How does Facebook deserve this money?
If you stay on Facebook, you implicitly acknowledge that they do, because you still judge the overall value of their service to be positive despite this added "inconvenience".
It's about Instagram, but applies too. Living in a walled garden is nice until the gardener wakes up drunk and want to make changes.
if facebook is making $1 off of my inconvenience, facebook should pay me at least .50c of that money. They're basically sanctioning spam as long as the charge rates are high.
I had a former co-worker a few years back that was looking for a new job. I found the perfect job for him and sent it to him via facebook.
Facebook gave me the ability to find his contact information via the town he was living in, his name, his profile picture, and some mutual friends. I was then able to start a conversation with him and have a few messages back and forth. Neither of us wanted the relationship to move beyond a few polite messages, and I probably would not have gone to the inconvenience of paying a dollar through facebook just to give him a job link that he may not have been interested in.
Facebook provides a convenient way for me to communicate with friends, family, and strangers spread across North America. As soon as this service becomes less convenient due to fees or advertising, I imagine that we will all migrate over to the next big thing. I had hoped that G+ was it, but apparently isn't.
Saying "deserve" doesn't belong in business discussions is the greedy coward's way out of having morals and ethics.
Seems to me that I should be able to let anybody contact me
I believe that's called making your e-mail address public.
In fact, part of this change is that Facebook will no longer let you share your contact info with only people who already know someone you've friended. More and more Facebook is dropping the "social" and becoming just another personal web page host site. Welcome back Geocities!
Here you go!
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
I suspect this feature will be used mostly by advertisers. If $10,000 gets you 10,000 messages to strangers who will be notified of it and probably read at least part of the message, that is a pretty good deal. I doubt most people will bother with it, preferring to just send a friend request. This set up is ideal for mass spam campaigns.
To hear from anyone that I don't know on FB. I totally lock down my account, nobody but me can post on my page, only friends can see posts, etc.
um maybe because it's their network that they created, and they can do whatever they want with it? If you don't like it, don't use it.
I am honestly surprised the recipient doesn't get a cut of this. And it would certainly lead to some interesting new spam magnet strategies; perhaps you could entice paid spam by spec'ing out options on a new Lexus at their website, for example.
How does Facebook deserve this money?
Because they say so?
Duh, it is because they offer a simple, efficient, inexpensive way to exchange information with anybody in the world in a safe environment. And... umm... oh... At least it is simple!
Yes, how dare they try to monetize their free-to-use website.
"Free" != no money exchanged.
Just because there's no overt monetary exchange does not mean it is a "free-to-use" website, but rather that your understanding of the word "free" is severely lacking.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
That $1 is just for the general riff-raff.
Spammers buy in bulk and get much better rates.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Am I the only one who misread that as "Facebook will let you massage strangers for $1"?
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
So what if people seem to want to message me and are willing to pay for it. At least Apple lets me keep a small percentage of the money they make on giving someone a copy of a song I have for sale on iTunes. Facebook wants 100% of the profits for themselves? I don't see this business model work if they aren't paying most of the money to the people receiving the messages.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
They provide their users with a service free of charge. How is that not free?
They are providing users with a service in exchange for the users providing them with content they can monetize. That's not free by any definition.
That the service they provide is to sell your details to advertisers is beside the point...
No, actually, that's exactly the point.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
If I were, then there would be an option where I could choose to opt-in or opt-out.
you opt-out by not using facebook.
that comment just strengthens the OPs statements. facebook isn't an entitlement. it's a commercial service that you can choose to use, or not. you don't need it to live or even need it to be comfortable in life.
They can send you a friend request at no charge.
Of course, they can't actually explain where they met you and why they want to be friends anymore without paying Facebook money to allow you to message them. Facebook removed messages from friends requests.