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Mark Zuckerberg goes in for the kill as Elon Musk’s Twitter bleeds ad dollars
(www.telegraph.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
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Technology
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Well I think it's kinda hard to imagine a free service that doesn't do either data collection or advertising or both (read: you are the product), with advertising it makes sense through being a more openly a field that has a lot of money circulating around it
The only other viable model I can personally think of is subscriptions, I find it hard to imagine that only forcing big corporations to pay to use your service, or that having it be donationbased would work with the amount of manpower and serverspace these products from within Silicon Valley typically host where they need millions maybe billions every month until they stop existing
Data collection and advertising go hand in hand. The data on it's own isn't very valuable. Where companies like Facebook and Google make the real money is in how their advertising platforms let customers use this data to target ads far more effectively than just showing them at random.
All of the automotive forums I ever used did make their money from advertising, BUT it was relevant advertising. Either it was sponsored by a vendor that specialized in that platform (ipdusa.com) or outright owned by a vendor (modernperformance.com)
These vendors also sold products that the users inherently wanted to buy and discuss. It was a symbiotic relationship. The discussion forum facilitated the business by allowing users to discuss their interest in an automotive platform.
I believe this is why the LTT platform still exists as well.
That is easier to do when your community covers some particular niche. That effectively does the ad targeting for you. An auto parts store knows that most people in a forum about car repair might actually be interested in their product.
It's harder with a more general purpose community like Facebook or Twitter. Most people on these platforms probably have no interest in auto parts. A good chunk of them might not even own cars at all. Initially, this meant that impressions sold in these spaces were dirt cheap, because they so rarely converted into clicks. This is where data collection comes in, because it allows your advertisers to actually narrow the focus of their ad campaigns to users that might actually be relevant. And the more data Facebook has on its users, the more detailed and effective these campaigns can become.
These specialized businesses are also ran by enthusiasts that also participate or even came from the community.
Facebook's model is dead with federation. Why would I as a company pay an advertiser to advertise on Facebook when I can spin up my own instance of some federated service where I can foster genuine interest in my product?