Tim Cook: “I wouldn’t be in this situation,” and argued that Apple sells products to users, it doesn’t sell users to advertisers, and so it’s a sounder business model that doesn’t open itself to these problems.
Mark Zuckerberg: “…But if you want to build a service which is not just serving rich people, then you need to have something that people can afford. I thought Jeff Bezos had an excellent saying on this in one of his Kindle launches a number of years back. He said, “There are companies that work hard to charge you more, and there are companies that work hard to charge you less.” And at Facebook, we are squarely in the camp of the companies that work hard to charge you less and provide a free service that everyone can use.
Facebook would not be the size that it is if it charged people money but it would be nearly as huge if it gave individuals the ability to pay for an experience where they are not tracked, monetized and served ads. There’s a difference between Freemium and a straight subscription model. Plain and simple a page that says “We make money by selling your data like every other free service / app available and if you don’t like that, you can give us $15 a year and we won’t use your most intimate thoughts, ideas and photos to make money”
Some people would pay and Facebook would not be in this mess. When a service doesn’t give me the ability to pay, I don’t use it. I pay for everything I use online when it’s a place that’s storing my personal data. If they don’t take my money, who’s money are they taking?