General Discussion

in order for you to want to engage with it

Even if you are not paying Facebook a subscription fee, you are still A customer, you're just not THE ONLY customer. You, and the advertisers, are both customers of Facebook. Simply put, it's not the case that any given business can have one, and only one, class of customer.

Also, if you click on an ad on Facebook, and you end up buying something from the vendor (what's known as a "conversion" in the internet sales lexicon), then (very often) some small % of the money you paid for the product will be forked over to Facebook.

This dynamic means that, yes, in fact, you ARE a customer of Facebook. Much like you are considered "the customer" the moment you walk into the shoe store, regardless of whether or not, on that particular day, you walked out with a pair of shoes that you paid for.