There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (TINSTAAFL)
I learned long ago that in the real world, there is no such thing as a free lunch. "Even if something appears to be free, there is always a cost to the person or to society as a whole even though that cost may be hidden or distributed." (Wikipedia)
So I find myself rather bemused at the outcry about Facebook's latest innovation, Instant Personalization, and the accompanying new option in Facebook's privacy settings. I have paid Facebook nothing for a service that I use daily (often many times each day). In return for my non-payment, I have received countless benefits, ranging from the simple pleasures of staying connected to friends (regardless of their geographical location) to moments that remind me of the "priceless" moments sentimentally highlighted in MasterCard advertisements. I haven't even sent Mark Zuckerburg a thank you note.
Maybe it's because I work for a media company, or maybe I'm just cynical, or maybe my high school history teacher explained TINSTAAFL really well -- somehow I am not surprised or resentful that Facebook is trying to make money off the amazing service they have supplied for free to 400 million people around the world. I also don't feel outraged that Facebook is looking for ways to monetize the information I have supplied to them on their website.
I also completely understand and agree with Facebook's decision to make the new Instant Personalization feature opt-out instead of opt-in. That's probably because of my experience managing online communities. Opt-in sounds so nice and considerate and respectful. But in terms of establishing critical mass, it's a hopelessly ineffective and unrealistic approach. Getting a huge number of people to actively choose to do something -- especially something completely new and different -- is massively difficult. If Facebook made Instant Personalization opt-in then its chances of succeeding would be very slim.
Inertia rules. Facebook is using inertia to establish instant value with the Instant Personalization feature by enabling it by default. They are banking, literally, on people becoming impressed with the feature when they experience it. (Try it on this blog! Just make sure you are signed in to Facebook, first, then click the Like button in the right column.) That's a far wiser bet than trying to convince people to opt-in to something they have never experienced and that's so game-changing that it's hard to fully grasp how it will work and why we would like to use it.
Facebook Entitlement Syndrome
So I find myself recalling the mob scene in Young Frankenstein (which, of course, is a parody of the original mob with pitchforks in the Frankenstein movie) as I watch the rapid (and rabid) spread of Facebook status messages along the lines of this one:
"Something else from FB to you: there is a new privacy setting called 'Instant Personalization' that shares data with non-facebook websites and it is automatically set to 'Allow.' Go to Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites and uncheck 'Allow.'" Copy and paste this in your FB status!This is often accompanied by a derisive comment to the effect of, "how dare they!" or "we won't let them get away with this!" This is what I call the Facebook Entitlement Syndrome.
It's absolutely true that without "us" -- Facebook's 400 million users -- Facebook would be nothing. Literally. So Facebook must be careful not to kill the goose that laid the golden egg by driving away hundreds of millions of the members of its community. But it's a false sense of entitlement, I think, to expect Facebook to philanthropically supply us with a sophisticated, innovative, culture-changing and constantly evolving software system without seeking creative and innovate ways to make money that will sustain the company and the site so many of us like to use. And what Facebook alone has that has the most value is the data that we have freely chosen to upload to their website.
No Coddling - We're Adults
I have reviewed my Facebook privacy settings. I am an adult and I accept responsibility for my decisions. I have restricted nearly everything I share on Facebook to viewing by my friends only. That means Facebook Instant Personalization is not going to expose to public view anything I have not already agreed to make public. I'm fine with that.
I choose to live a connected life online. In addition to Facebook, I have a blog, after all, and a LinkedIn profile and Twitter account (@Ted_Hopton), and I seek the social and professional benefits that virtual connections can provide. I can accept that companies spending millions of dollars to build, maintain, promote and improve those connecting services are seeking revenue in return for the services I enjoy for "free." I can tolerate targeted advertising messages based on the data I have chosen to upload to those sites, just as I tolerate advertisements on television programs I enjoy, in newspapers and magazines I like to read, on websites I visit, in grocery stores where I shop, in the mail and my email inbox, and so on.
I accept that there is no such thing as a free lunch, no such thing as a free Internet, and no such thing as a free Facebook. And I'm excited to see what's going to happen next. A year from now, I wonder if we'll all be routinely clicking on Facebook Like buttons all over the Internet and marveling at how useful it has become to share and rate information based on our own network of Facebook friends.
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