The Horn Blog

The one question we here at The Horn get from people all the time is: Why should I pay for The Horn when Facebook and most other social networks are free?

Here’s the answer to that question: They aren’t free – you’re already paying.

You pay for the “privilege” of using Facebook and its ilk by giving them all that information about you. And bear in mind, you don’t need any sophisticated “data-harvester” to clandestinely grab any that data: most of it is OUT IN THE OPEN! All those preferences you set, all those profile questions you answer (“My favorite movie: Pulp Fiction!)… All that stuff is out on the public web, for anyone to see – and grab. You don’t even have to be logged in to Facebook to see most of it. (And yes, we know: you can set your privacy controls so that not everyone can see them. But hardly anyone on Facebook ever does – and that might be partly because Facebook does not exactly make this easy to do….)

Then Facebook turns around and sells your data to third parties. And now you’ve just lost control of your own data…. (BTW, FYI: Facebook supposedly makes about $7 a month per member selling its members’ data. Multiply that by 2.3 billion people… and now you know why Mark is one of the richest guys in the world.)

The Horn uses a completely different business model, which we think is almost brilliant in its simplicity. You pay us $100 a month for up to 100 members – or $1 a month per member- and not only do we NOT sell your data to third parties, you don’t have to look at any ads on our service, either.

So now you have a decision to make: You can let Facebook make $7 a month selling your own stuff – which you’ve now lost control over (and needless to say, Facebook doesn’t share any of that $7 with you); or, You can pay The Horn for a completely ad-free experience, and not lose control of your data at all. Heck, Google doesn’t even index posts on The Horn – your activities and posts won’t even show up on a search engine!

So to sum: You ARE paying to be on Facebook. Why not pay The Horn directly and not be party to all that crap?