The recent Facebook changes – the news ticker, the timeline, the frictionless sharing, the Open Graph, the Top Stories – has brought an old rumor bubbling back up to the surface. Joy of joys.
Let’s quash this rumor right now. Facebook is not about to start charging everyone to use the site. It never will. It’s free now and will always remain so. Facebook has said so and logic dictates this will be the case.
How can I be so confident? Because Facebook makes billions of dollars each year through advertising. Why would it risk losing the majority of its 800 million users by starting to charge?
The whole reason behind these most recent Facebook changes is to persuade us all to provide more information so that advertising can be better targeted at us as individuals. Charging for access would rather defeat this purpose.
It only takes a moment to Google something before spreading the rumor on to others. So why not do so.
