Imagine if Facebook charged its users a $10 monthly fee, and assuming that 90% of the users paid the fee, then Facebook would have made a whopping $86.4 billion in just one year. That is like 20 times more than Facebook’s current revenue rate.

Recently Facebook made some changes to the appearance of profiles and added some new features, which the users found it too annoying. However, despite the changes being rolled out to most of the users, there have been updates and messages posted by users indicating that Facebook will be charging a monthly fee to all users for the new revamped profile.

The hoax has been spreading for a while now, from one profile to another, where users are copy-pasting the message to alert their friends about the charges. The message states that Facebook has released three different plans from which users can choose from.

It includes Gold membership for $9.99/month, Silver membership for $6.99/month and Bronze membership for $3.99/month. However, it also states that the charges will be waived off if users copy-paste the message on their wall. Well, this is the heart of the message, which is mainly leading users to spread the hoax.

FACEBOOK JUST RELEASED THEIR PRICE GRID FOR MEMBERSHIP. $9.99 PER MONTH FOR GOLD MEMBER SERVICES, $6.99 PER MONTH FOR SILVER MEMBER SERVICES, $3.99 PER MONTH FOR BRONZE MEMBER SERVICES, FREE IF YOU COPY AND PASTE THIS MESSAGE BEFORE MIDNIGHT TONIGHT. WHEN YOU SIGN ON TOMORROW MORNING YOU WILL BE PROMPTED FOR PAYMENT INFO…IT IS OFFICIAL IT WAS EVEN ON THE NEWS. FACEBOOK WILL START CHARGING DUE TO THE NEW PROFILE CHANGES. IF YOU COPY THIS ON YOUR WALL YOUR ICON WILL TURN BLUE AND FACEBOOK WILL BE FREE FOR YOU. PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON IF NOT YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE DELETED IF YOU DO NOT PAY

Beware that this is a fake message and there is no such thing has membership feewhich you need to pay in order to use the new profile. Facebook was free, Facebook is free and Facebook will remain free to all users.

When you’re signing in to Facebook from the main page (facebook.com), you can see a message that states – It’s free and always will be.At least this should make you realize that the above spreading message is a fake. Facebook is NOT going to ask you for your payments, and there isn’t any official announcement made by Facebook. So, don’t waste your time by spreading this hoax and spamming the social network.

Facebook has announced that the above message is a rumor and has no plans to charge its users.

However, if Facebook did introduce something like paid plansor paid verified accounts, then it might work out for them. There a number of fake celebrity accounts and with all the increasing number of scams, tracking cyber criminals would be a lot easier. It would also be easier to identify real celebrity accounts if they have a verifiedbadge pinned to their profile. Thinking of the odds, this might also lead to deletion of account as other networking sites like Twitter and Google Plus offer the verification process for free.

There are also fair chances of introducing paid add-on services on the social network, which it announced during the f8 2011 conference. One such add-on service would be Spotify’s music service. It has partnered with Facebook which will allow users to stream tracks directly from the news feed or from one’s own profile. It was announced that the service will be available for free, but Spotify hopes that this new level exposure to Facebook’s enormous user base will help drive paid subscriptions.