I think I'd like to pay for a social network in one of the following ways:

1) Pay for a good native client(s) (and leave the web version free)
2) Pay to have no ads (and allow others to use for free with ad/sponsored stuff)
3) Pay to have read/write access (allow others to read-only for free).

Any thoughts? Other options?

Yes. :-)

1) fine by me, but hard to see how that would be a sustainable thing for the provider unless it's a subscription or you have to continually pay for upgrades
2) Tolerable maybe, though I'd be happier if it was 'pay to not include me in mining / selling of data'
3) I reckon this option would have a bit of an activation-energy issue

1+2 I guess could work.

I think users would be more happier to pay for the ability to not see SPAM tweets every couple of minutes. There'd also be a more focussed user base with less idiots being rude and/or abusive. I would have said none but lets be honest, there's always one ;-)
Then there's having no ads which at a minimum should be a by-product of actually charging a fee; after all the provider needs to make money somehow.
All in all, I like the idea; guess that's why I joined AppNet, come say hi there at alpha.app.net or on Twitter for that matter twitter.com

1) I agree that sustainability is tough if you sell your app as a product and not as a service. I wonder how well Marco does with the optional service charges for Instapaper?

2) I may be out on a limb, but I don't think I care about my data being mined, if I don't have to see the resulting ads (directly, at least). If some people opted out of the mining side of things, it adversely affects the quality of the social graph. SOme people option out of seeing the ads doesn't do that.

3) Couldn't this have the opposite effect: sucking people in once they have read a few posts (and used up there 5 free writes)?

Oh - so I see from Tim that App.net is using the free to read / pay to wrote model. It hasn't worked though, as a) I didn't know and b) there's no handful of free writes to lure me in.

App.net is still a work in progress and needs to learn a few things about drumming up interest. It's still early days, fortunately I have a few people to follow and following me (mainly from Twitter) so its not too quiet

Option 3 is the model Friends Reunited used. Nuff said.

A balance is definitely difficult to strike, Option 3 could work once traction has been gained, users tend to like to try things out before they commit cold hard cash to things. Remove that option and they may just not bother. Perhaps a free month trial, limited to only x amount of activity a day, inability to post links too maybe to deter spammers although that could be annoying.

@James: there's no 'Like' option on this unfortunately to flippantly show my agreement :(

I can't see paid-for social networking taking off for many years. How many millions of people have had Facebook for free, for how long?

I also can't see it working out that if you pay, you get less ads. Newspapers, magazines, TV all charge for their content and they all push ads in your face. The majority of "pay-to-hide-the-ads" services I've used folded (one way or another) after not long. The social networks might try it for a while, but money's a comforting, sustaining drug.

I've had too much coffee today; sorry for the cynicism.

Well, App.net got 10,000 backers before launching (which has already grown to around 17,500 now that they have launched) so some people clearly are happy to pay.

I agree that these people aren't your standard Facebook user. More likely, they are the 1% of Google Plus users (I'm one of the 99% of Google Plus 'users').

I don't know what the answer is yet, but the next few years will be fascinating. We're going to be using these sorts of services, but wouldn't it be a shame if we are constantly moving form one to the next like we are now? Instead of agreeing on a protocol then paying one provider for a decent service. Like we do for landlines. The U.S. has been plagued for years by non-standard services. I don't want to go through that.

I think smaller private social networks that center around a few demographic factors might end up existing. Taking the obvious example, App.net might be a social network of geeks, all talking to each other but I could see others emerging.

However the largest ubiquitous social networks will all be 100% free with no paid option. To scale, they need the massive audience of people that would never pay to show up and to see the whole block to brands.

The idea of paid on top of free sounds great, but they very people that would pay to opt-out of he ads are the ones most desirable to brands. Paying customers would/could never pay enough to justify them opt-ing out.

My assumption on moving is that all previous ability of a social network to rise and conqueror the previous network ended when the mass market hopped on board. Once you parents and grandparents have joined a network, the network effects are so massive that the incombants have "won". Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumblr will all maintain and grow their positions, and the copy cat, me too networks (Google+ and the even less relevant Microsoft clone) go nowhere.

App.net can survive as a small, stable business, but anyone going for scale by copying the leaders and hoping to be 'cooler' will languish and die.

There is room for a unique social network, or a massive disruptor, but the network effects have ended the rise and fall pattern.

I've put a few of these thoughts up at number23.org by the way.

Hi Alpesh: good points. I think I agree about the position of the current incumbents: most none-geeks don't care about the ads. I mean, look at Facebook on mobile nowadays. When a disrupt comes, it'll have to be different enough to be a real disrupt, not just an incremental update.

I'd like to toss in another option for charging money for a social network: data storage.

Could the Dropbox model work in the context of social networking? People really care about their photos and videos, especially who owns them (Facebook). What is you were paying storage fees (think iCloud, Dropbox, etc) and the social networking features and functionality were free. You might even be able to serve some unobtrusive advertising as well.

There is also the option of charging for-profits companies for an account. There are loads of companies who use social traffic to generate revenue. Why not charge them for this?

I asked this question on Quora (quora.com) where people brought up some good points.

Maybe it doesn't make sense for Facebook, but it might make sense for someone else in the online social space.

Re: the charging for-profits - is google+ trying to do this? I guess I'll have a look at the quora answer :)

Storage is an interesting idea. Apple also now have the same model for iCloud storage.

Maybe for the bulky things, it could work. People like to keep track of their 'stuff'. Interestingly, suppose all your messages etc. were stored this way too: that would then leave *anyone* open to mining, if they had the resources. In some ways that feels better than just one company having the option...

I like the idea of a freemium model, for storage or other features. I do think that one of the good things that the free model allows for that paid won't is that free accounts allow for parody, comedy or utility accounts that likely wouldn't exist if each cost an annual fee. Those accounts really do add a lot to the overall community.

Having companies pay presents two issues. Small companies will likely never show up, which hurts them and other users. Small companies will often pass on ANY marketing expense that they can't prove 100% ahead of time will pay off (which really hurts most of their businesses, penny wise, pound foolish).

The bigger issue is that the networks want them to join, participate and then upsell them at much bigger rates for the ads. Twitter doesn't want a $50.00 annual fee from either the local pizzeria or Coke. They want $500.00 a month for 12 months from the pizza place and several 100k a pop from Coke. And they want the other pizza place and Pepsi to see those ads and jump on board as well.

Heard about Tent a while back. It's just a protocol, but now tent.is have made setting up your own node a doddle. This shape of network makes most sense to me: let's see what happens!

philipmcdermott.tent.is

what we are willing to pay would change the social networking market.

I will always pay for no advertising. App.nets model makes the most sence in that regard.

We will see some paid models take off now as people are tired of in your face ads all the time.

Here's how I use social networks:

Facebook: has everyone I know well or am acquainted with. good for looking up contact details/current status. good for updates on bdays, anniversaries, graduations etc. (free is good)

Twitter: Best way to get breaking news on stuff I like and stuff in general. I retweet things I think are relevant, easily the service you would use to get to know me. (would pay for this)

Google+: Like it for the nerdy and geeky posts and cartoons :) (free is good)

Email: besides work stuff, long email threads [gmail creates a new thread after 1000 emails] with close friends/family about personal stuff. (would pay for this)