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Monetizing on consumer-taste startups

2 points by tomasienrbc ↗ HN
I hear a lot of complaining about the ways in which consumer-taste based tech companies like Facebook, Klout, or even Google monetize on their products. Most of the criticisms seem to center on the perceived notion that they turn the user into the product, and that's somehow wrong. My question: does someone have a better idea?

4 comments

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tomasienrbc
That sounds a little aggressive, but this isn't meant as a call out: I'm legitimately curious. Currently UnThink the "anti-Facebook" claims to have solves these issues, but they STILL make their users their product. Anybody got an idea on how to monetize on consumer-taste based products that doesn't involve making your free users into the product?
adambarber
I don't really see the problem with making the user the product. T.V. does it, newspapers do it, radio stations do it. Either a user pays for a service, or they get marketed to. The one variant that I think we'll be seeing a lot more of though, is instead of advertising, more direct affiliate deals.

WordPress.org, as an example, has turned their web-hosting info page into a giant affiliate ad. They provide useful info about where people can host their sites, and get a referral fee for each signup. Moving from CPM to cost-per-action is something that a lot of companies could stand to do.

AznHisoka
there's an inherent problem in that... if you don't get a bunch of new visitors, your revenue is going to drop steadily because there's only so many people who will need web hosting... with CPM, there's no such worry. Users don't have to click, you get paid a solid amount month after month, even if there are no new visitors.
adambarber
I agree it's tricky to start with. Though if you've got a funnel with numbers that work, it's the difference between making a few cents per customer, vs a few dollars per customer.