Who is this for? Is it just a way to monetize dying platforms before they inevitably become worthless?
Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions
21–30 of 533 posts
Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions
#22Interesting. Instagram and Facebook both seem to be filled with AI-generated fake crap today. Even the so-called news items that I see there seem to be fake. I don't even know who would be subscribing. Especially to Facebook as of today....
It is filled with pretty low quality content overall. On the other side, WhatsApp has been getting filled with a lot of bloat. And even today, I find it confusing to use communities in WhatsApp. The entire navigation and experience around that feature confused me a few times. There's been more and more push towards the AI crap on WhatsApp as well.
The only good thing about WhatsApp is, it is used by everyone that I know, so I can connect with them pretty easily and make calls, etc. I hope they don't enshittify it too much to the point where I'll go and use Signal full time.
Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions
#23Discord subscriptions seem to be working. People like to customize their profile (ie express themselves), even though profiles are not something frequently interacted with (that's the surprising part!) I have a server (for my game) with about 1000 people. Out of the 300 people logged in, 50 of them have custom profiles. So, it seems like a good idea for Meta.
The main problem is that premium subscriptions don’t generate that much revenue when compared to ads alone. The users who pay are the most valuable users to advertisers and the users who don’t pay are the least valuable. Discord generates about $1 in revenue per user compared to Facebook at closer to $100. For Discord at $1 per user, any subscription that’s a few dollars or more is probably paying for the lost advertising revenue, but it wouldn’t translate for Meta so they aren’t including ad free which drastically reduces the value.
I’ll be surprised if Meta’s subscriptions are as popular as Discord’s without being advertising free. Cosmetics are liked amongst Discord’s audience of nerds, but not Meta’s audience of normal people.
Very interested to see how this works out for Meta. Since they’re not excluding ads, it’s basically free money, so they may as well offer these subscriptions.
Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions
#24> In an announcement, Meta’s head of product, Naomi Gleit, noted that “more fun features” will be added in the future.
Thank you - I don't want any of that.
What exactly are "fun" features, anyway? Do they take away from my time?
Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions
#25I would pay $49.99/mo for an unlimited plan that brings me only my friends' status updates (not their hyper-political likes and comments), just their life updates. Daily stories are great too. But JUST that, no influencers, no ads. I realize Meta's data shows that our user revealed preferences tells them that we like all the dopamine hijacking garbage but that's like saying "Well users like drugs, so we gave them mor…
This is absurd. You're just asking for reasonable control over data that ostensibly belongs to you. Moreover, this minimum functionality was resolved years ago with RSS. That you'd be willing to pay so much reflects how well every tech company is doing at using tech against its own users.
Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions
#26Discord subscriptions seem to be working. People like to customize their profile (ie express themselves), even though profiles are not something frequently interacted with (that's the surprising part!) I have a server (for my game) with about 1000 people. Out of the 300 people logged in, 50 of them have custom profiles. So, it seems like a good idea for Meta.
tbh I mostly pay for nitro for cross-server, animated emoji
Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions
#27I would pay $49.99/mo for an unlimited plan that brings me only my friends' status updates (not their hyper-political likes and comments), just their life updates. Daily stories are great too. But JUST that, no influencers, no ads. I realize Meta's data shows that our user revealed preferences tells them that we like all the dopamine hijacking garbage but that's like saying "Well users like drugs, so we gave them mor…
Pay each of your friends $50 one per month, to switch to signal. Problem solved
$50 per month for unlimited, not $50 per friend, so your solution only works if you only have 1 friend, so it would work for me (self-deprecating joke) but may not for GP.
Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions
#28It's a real shame private messaging has ended up being almost exclusively closed-source without any kind of open API.
How did we let this happen? We used to have open protocols, apps like Pidgin that would bring multiple chat clients together under one interface, IRC, Skype P2P, etc. etc. Was it spammers that caused this mass migration to ever more closed platforms?
They all still exist, but we don't have the collective courage to use them when it means you might miss a status update from your friends.
Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions
#29I would pay $49.99/mo for an unlimited plan that brings me only my friends' status updates (not their hyper-political likes and comments), just their life updates. Daily stories are great too. But JUST that, no influencers, no ads. I realize Meta's data shows that our user revealed preferences tells them that we like all the dopamine hijacking garbage but that's like saying "Well users like drugs, so we gave them mor…
Pay each of your friends $50 one per month, to switch to signal. Problem solved
Or, better, Mastodon or Matrix, which don't rely on a single, easy-to-target server.
Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions
#30It's a real shame private messaging has ended up being almost exclusively closed-source without any kind of open API.
How did we let this happen? We used to have open protocols, apps like Pidgin that would bring multiple chat clients together under one interface, IRC, Skype P2P, etc. etc. Was it spammers that caused this mass migration to ever more closed platforms?
The vast majority of people aren't aware of open versus closed protocols. If enough people they want to communicate with are using it to counterbalance how frustrating it is, they'll use it. It happened because businesses realized there's profit in lock in, and they threw resources at it.
Open protocols are still there and still used, but we're sad because the smaller userbase is frustrating. Just like how people still publish human written content to personal blogs, but they're proportionally non-existent.