Some Facebook users believe that the company will add a pricing structure to membership in the future despite the fact that the Facebook spokesman Larry Yu stated last month that they have absolutely no plans to charge for the basic service of using the social network.
With this fact in mind, Facebook has modified their sign up form to fight the ongoing speculations that it will charge its users for access. The front page account sign up form will now read, “It’s free (and always will be)”.
While you may think that those at the company are more concerned with other matters such as privacy, credit implementation and security, the changes to the front page sign up show how strongly Facebook sees the opinions and concerns of its users.
With many users creating their own cyber home on Facebook, uploading photos, activities and keeping in touch easily with far flung friends and family, it’s easy to see why they react strongly to the ‘pay or lose it’ concept. It is undeniable that Facebook and the social networking sites like it, have become an essential tool for business success and communication.
Over the years we have seen many sorts of anti-payment Facebook groups popping up, calling for boycotts of the site and to cancel accounts if they charge for membership and usage. Many have died a natural death, but there hardly seems to be a month goes by before you receive yet another panicked join request for a group claiming that Facebook is going to charge you for usage. Usually in chain letter style, these requests will ask you to pass it on to all of your contacts.
The company clarifies their stance on their page by stating, among other issues, “We are not going to start charging you to use Facebook. So the next time you see a chain letter, chain wall post, or chain anything, report it to our User Operations team, and tell all your friends to ignore it. We could make a joke here about passing this entry on to ten of your friends, but that’s not cool.”
Zynga, the social games giant that includes Farmville, was hit by the same type of trouble back in February when rumors swept the Internet that it would be changing from free to a subscription based entity at the end of March. The game developer quickly squashed the rumors.
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