Facebook Has Made $4.23 Off Your Profile This Year

Facebook and U.S. DollarAs Facebook users, we take it for granted that we get to use the platform for free — but that doesn’t mean we don’t pay a price. With the data it gathers from us, Facebook is able to sell billions of dollars’ worth of advertising every year. In its recent quarterly report, the social media giant revealed that it has made $4.23 off every one of its nearly 2 billion active users so far in 2017.

Overall, the company reported an astonishing $8.03 billion in sales for the quarter. Its ad revenue grew 51 percent from where it was this time last year, when the site only made $3.32 from every user. And these kinds of profits don’t show any signs of slowing down.

“Seventy million businesses are now using Facebook pages around the world on a monthly basis, and more and more of them are becoming advertisers,” Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said. “We also recently announced that over 5 million business are actively advertising on Facebook.”

The site also added 80 million active users during the first part of the year, which begs the question: when will this constant growth grind to a halt? There’s no telling, but one thing is for certain: Facebook continues to rake in tremendous profits on the back of its users’ information.