As an admitted Apple detractor who has (counts) six Macbooks, two iPads and five iPhones under his immediate care and feeding, the reality of the situation is that Apple took the telecom industry's loss leader - the cell phone - and turned it into a high profit margin device. Apple makes more on every iPhone than Aston Martin makes on every Vantage. I'm staring at three Kindle Fire HD's 'cuz they're so cheap I can use them as auxiliary displays for my control surfaces but bloody hell replacing my kid's iPad so she could play Toka Nature cost like $500. And they consistently do it. Every year. For two decades.

Facebook?

Their business model has always been "we can sell people to other people." They've been super-secretive about what they're doing to make those sales, and they've been super-secretive about what kind of value you get out of it. This lady?

The tech giant points to people like Monique Wilsondebriano. She launched the Charleston Gourmet Burger company in South Carolina. When she first started, she could not afford TV or radio ads. But she was able to drum up interest on Facebook.

Uhhh

Manufacturer of unique, delicious, Gourmet Burger Marinade & Gourmet Burger Sauce. Available in major retail chains including Wal-Mart USA, Lowe's Home Improvement, Kroger USA, Harris Teeter Supermarkets, Costco, Military Commissaries and more. Also available ONLINE http://charlestongourmetburger.com/

As seen on The FOOD Network and NBC's The TODAY Show See Less

FuHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUK oFFFFFFFFFFFFFF with that shit, Monique. Your PR person put you in front of Facebook.

'cuz here's the thing: I've bought FB ads, and we stopped when we realized that they were far more evil than the utility we were getting out of them. We were paying I think like $4 for every contact we got through Facebook. Now ask yourself: would you give all of your data to Facebook for $4? Then why are you giving it up for free? For that matter, if Facebook's data on you were worth that much why can't you just pay them to leave you the fuck alone?

Fundamentally the entire privacy-scraping industry doesn't want you to have any concrete data on just how worthless their business model is. There's a big delta between what consumers value their privacy at and what businesses value their information at and as soon as Facebook reveals what it is they're out of business. This is why Google's revenue per click has been going down every year.