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Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

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Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#141

Post by Marsymars »

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.

The sticky bit I have is facebook marketplace - it's wiped out the other classified marketplaces in my area.

I'm not making any serious money off the old stuff I sell, but the alternative to selling it (or even giving away low-value stuff that's still functional) on facebook is basically just throwing it out / destructively recycling it.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#142

Post by chistev »

Painsawman123 wrote: post #113
sometimelurker wrote: post #105

is meta low on $? why would they do this?

after they introduced Community notes, it isn't far fetched to say that they're simply copying Twitter...

Zuckerberg copying? Who would have thought.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#143

Post by chistev »

fontain wrote: post #36
iLoveOncall wrote: post #17

It's insane that those subscriptions don't remove ads. That's the only thing I would even remotely consider paying for on any meta product. In the current state those subscriptions will just show your friends that you're a huge loser who's willing to pay for custom backgrounds.

Unfortunately, Meta’s ad business is so effective that they would need to charge hundreds of dollars per year for an ad free service just to keep revenue stable. I suspect anything less than $25 per month would be loss making for them.

And even then, they wouldn't remove ads since they'd want to add to their profits!

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#145

Post by the_af »

anon35 wrote: post #129
timoth3y wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "if the product is free, you are the product" This is not true. You are the product whether you are paying or not. If the company thinks they can make money by selling your data/attention/access, they will do so. Paying them does not stop them from monetizing you. These new paid tiers will be slowly enshitified just like most modern paid plans.

You seem to be attacking a different statement that no one says: "if the product isn't free, you aren't the product". There's no "if and only if" in the maxim. Pretty sure you agree that if the product is free, the company is definitely getting value by monetizing something else of yours. It very much is true as written.

From a formal logic standpoint, you're correct.

But the context of the parent's and grandparent's comments was (paraphrased) "if you don't pay, you're the product, therefore it makes sense to pay in this case". But given what we know of Meta and their ilk, we have good reason to believe this is absolutely NOT the case: you'll pay but you'll still be the product, and their offerings will keep on the road to enshitification. So parent comment is correct given this context.

I don't believe they were making the case that free Facebook is in any way healthy or good for you.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#148

Post by grvdrm »

Loughla wrote: post #97
derwiki wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know about other places, but in SF, everything around schools is coordinated over WhatsApp—you’d be really doing your children a disservice to opt out. And I hate it. I had deactivated all my Meta accounts but reactivated WhatsApp because of school stuff.

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.

I assume parents. Not actual schools. Same situation here on East Coast. School uses ParentSquare but so much coordination is over iMesssage and WhatsApp.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#149

Post by WarmWash »

sensanaty wrote: post #134
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.

If I'm paying and still getting unwanted ads...then I am no longer going to be paying.

I'm not sure what win Meta sees here.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#150

Post by Marsymars »

fontain wrote: post #23
YesBox wrote: post #6

Discord 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 advert…

> The users who pay are the most valuable users to advertisers and the users who don’t pay are the least valuable.

But also, definitionally, the users who are willing to pay the most are the ones who the see ads as the biggest anti-value (i.e. cost) to themselves - so they'll be the ones most likely to not use the service if they're not given an ad-free option - cutting down the average user value anyway.

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