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Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

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Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#132

Post by h4kunamata »

qqtt wrote: post #98

I'm going to go against the grain here and say this is probably a positive thing for Meta products, and honestly every other "free" service to provide these kinds of revenue avenues. How many times do we hear things like "if the product is free, you are the product" - well, the consequence of that is development resources tend to be pulled into directions that benefit advertisers. By having material subscription reve…

>How many times do we hear things like "if the product is free, you are the product" - well

Well, now they will keep doing what they are doing while being paid because your data is their business model.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#133

Post by cm11 »

darth_avocado wrote: post #125
qqtt wrote: post #98

I'm going to go against the grain here and say this is probably a positive thing for Meta products, and honestly every other "free" service to provide these kinds of revenue avenues. How many times do we hear things like "if the product is free, you are the product" - well, the consequence of that is development resources tend to be pulled into directions that benefit advertisers. By having material subscription reve…

Id pay money to not see ads. Like YouTube premium. And I’m sure I’m not the only one. Can’t believe they rolled out all these different plans and left out the one thing a lot of people would buy.

Does Youtube Premium track and build profiles and use and sell them? I assume so because Google, but does Premium remove advertising (in the broad sense of the business model and profiling) or remove just ads? YT in general seems "kinder" than others at a few things, like you can remove history and activity and even get a blank homescreen.

Aside: I think it's funny how with an NYT subscription, you still get not only ads, but frequent article-covering ads for NYT subscriptions (asking to upgrade to a family account).

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#134

Post by sensanaty »

qqtt wrote: post #98

I'm going to go against the grain here and say this is probably a positive thing for Meta products, and honestly every other "free" service to provide these kinds of revenue avenues. How many times do we hear things like "if the product is free, you are the product" - well, the consequence of that is development resources tend to be pulled into directions that benefit advertisers. By having material subscription reve…

You paying just signals that you're someone to push more ads to and to harvest more data on, since it means you have disposable income to spend on something as useless as instagram or facebook.

Meta isn't going to stop harvesting all your information just because you pay for a subscription, they'll harvest and sell your data AND take your money.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#135

Post by danpalmer »

I use WhatsApp for almost all my communication with family and friends. I'm also happy to pay for things that improve my experience.

...but it's unclear what this subscription would give me. The announcement has no real details, the article is light on detail, and the WhatsApp website has no mention of this subscription.

I get that it's hard. What I want is a good text and call app, and that's hard to charge for at scale. But every feature that Meta has added to justify charging (AI, stories, profiles, etc), makes the product worse for me and makes me less likely to pay for it.

They're in a hard place.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#136

Post by outime »

drnick1 wrote: post #46

Just stop using Meta products. It's really not as hard as it seems. Nobody needs FB to communicate with friends and family. Send texts or emails or use your phone.

>It's really not as hard as it seems

Only on HN could someone post a take like this without getting laughed at. Outside our very geeky HN bubble, hardly anyone (let's say in Europe, but all my friends in the US use it as well) uses anything other than WhatsApp. There's literally zero reason for the average user to switch.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#138

Post by fooker »

pj_mukh wrote: post #11

I 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…

You'd do it once and figure out that none of your friends have regular status updates any more.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#139

Post by Loughla »

derwiki wrote: post #114
Loughla wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell your school board to use a dedicated messaging platform built for schools. Cite privacy laws. That's what I did, and it worked. Unless you're talking about parent groups. Because then you're fucked. Every parent group everywhere uses Facebook or Whatsapp and don't care that not everybody uses it. You will be excluded.

Which privacy laws?

FERPA, COPPA, and whatever your particular state has. Just Google it.
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