Facebook is Taking BILLIONS of Dollars From People! (and Other Misnomers...)

Without a doubt, Facebook — now known as Meta — is the "600 pound gorilla" in the world of social media.

One of the interesting things is that we often take Facebook to task because billions of users are on the giant social media site, doing what they do without getting compensated for it at all. Here on Hive, we a blessed because we get rewarded for our efforts.

Inevitably, shrill voices speak up and try to persuade people that Facebook is ”Taking hundreds and even THOUSANDS of dollars from you every year!”

Of course claims like that are basically panic mongering that don't really have any significant basis in truth. One piece of "faulty logic" I often come across is that because someone is making $200 a month on Hive for creating content, Facebook is somehow "taking" $200 from those who are not on Hive.

Rather sketchy reasoning, says I...

But aside from that, the numbers are all askew. Or, if not askew, certainly being misrepresented.

Let's consider this:

Facebook's gross annual receipts for the most recently reported fiscal year amounted to $85.9 billion. Yes, that's a lot of money! Facebook also has 2.89 billion active users. If we do a little simple math, that means the average active Facebook user actually has a value of just $29.72 per user per year. Not hundreds of dollars. Not thousands of dollars.

Of course, the cold hard facts are seldom as exciting or as headline worthy as those inflated fictional fabrications.

Now, don't misunderstand me here: I am no fan of Facebook. However, I am a fan on keeping matters somewhat factual.

Without a doubt, Hive represents a new frontier in social media.

Specifically, the legacy way of thinking is that online content has very little value, with exception of a handful of exceptional content creators who are being paid actual salaries by organizations like National Geographic or the New York Times, because they attract millions of eyeballs to those companies' web sites and publications. The fact that the average Facebook user is actually only worth $29.72 per year, kind of bears out "content has no value" paradigm.

However, when we look at that, the fact is that Hive isn't really trying to give us what Facebook doesn't, because it's not an "apples to apples" comparison. Facebook could under no circumstances afford to pay people the kinds of rewards for their content that we have here on Hive. Facebook would simply run out of money in a matter of a few months!

Don't believe me?

Let's consider again a random Hive creator who — for ease of argument — earns $100 a month in Hive rewards. If Facebook were to pay each of its 2.89 billion users $100 a month, that would amount to monthly payments of $289 billion, or annual outlays of more than $3.4 trillion!"

As a point of reference, the world's largest company — Apple — reported annual sales of $365.82 billion in their most recent 2021 financial year. It's also more than the 2021 US budget deficit of $2.77 trillion that so many people lose sleep over.

See how these numbers are just not adding up? Or not making sense?

Not blaming anyone, because it's easy to lose perspective when dealing with numbers so unimaginably large that we have no real-life frame of reference.

Of course, there is no telling what the distant future might hold. If we arrive at a future where content creation and the "Attention Economy" becomes the single largest industry in the world (the distinction is currently held by the Financial Services industry, valued at around US $22 trillion) such numbers might start to make more sense.

Even so, the simple mathematics of the idea that social media could even come close to paying billions of people some kind of semi sustainable income leaves the mind to wrestle with some huge gaps!

For now though? Let's just be incredibly grateful that we get to benefit from being on the cutting edge of a "niche within a niche," as the world continues to unfold!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!

How about YOU? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 20220106 13:48 PDT
0461/1705