You most likely remember your parents repeating the phrase over and over in the hopes that it would eventually embed itself in your adolescent minds: “Don’t talk to strangers.” Years later, it turns out their advice was taken to heart since Facebook is currently testing an initiative to charge users to message complete strangers outside their network — though why’d you even want to do so prior to this change is beyond us — that will set them back $100. The social media juggernaut is still deliberating over the exact price point, but regardless, contacting some random unknown who will most likely ignore your message seems like a quick way to throw money down the drain no matter the finalized cost.
Facebook had been toying around with this experiment since December, initially charging a handful of users $1.00 to ensure that their message to someone out of their network ends up in the inbox as opposed to the rarely checked and recently implemented “Other” folder — where unsolicited messages go to die, basically. A spokesperson from the company said that they’re looking at various extreme price points in the hope that it will act as a spam filter, dissuading those that would otherwise abuse the messaging feature for frivolous and unwarranted purposes.
Originally, it was believed that $100 cost of sending a message was reserved for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, but users have discovered that the tentative price tag applies to nearly everyone regardless of popularity or status.
So unless sending Zuckerberg a message containing a link to funny video you made is an absolute top priority, we feel that there are better ways one can spend their hard earned money… like 100 tacos for $100, for instance.
(via The Verge, image via Thos003)
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