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Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

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Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#181

Post by whyenot »

sethops1 wrote: post #176
darth_avocado wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I paid for YouTube Premium until they started showing me ads for YouTube TV (and maybe YouTube Red at the time?). Cancelled and got into DNS adblocking.

Maybe this was something country or region specific. I don’t remember ever seeing ads for TV, Red, or other products with my US premium subscription. Now, some channels will promote specific products in their videos (like the mini ads some do for square space, nordvpn, etc), but YouTube, now has a button you can click to jump over that garbage.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#182

Post by bigmadshoe »

tgma wrote: post #173
sensanaty wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People who spew I'd rather pay, I'd rather pay often majorly underestimate how expensive Google and Facebook would have to be in the western world to offset the ad revenue per person. The irony is this is especially true for you if money is no object to you, as you'd be disproportionately valuable to the ad machine. It's not going to be ten bucks folks.

You can actually look this information up! For example, Instagram makes approx $2-50 ad revenue per user per year, depending on the region. Apparently it’s highest in North America.

So Of course this would get pretty expensive for all the services we use. But I personally would happily throw $100-$250 per year at my most used apps to stop being advertised to.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#183

Post by pmontra »

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…

Are there ads in WhatsApp? I never saw one. Facebook, I remember a lot of ads. Instagram, probably but I don't have an account there.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#185

Post by vineyardmike »

cm11 wrote: post #133
darth_avocado wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Most of these big companies don’t actually sell your data directly, they monetize it through first party ads. If you have a well-oiled ad machine with strong first party data, selling the data just gives it to competitors, and is overall less valuable than using it for yourself.

I’d assume they’re still building that profile while you use the product, but you won’t see any ads, and can still delete the data from the various points like you’ve mentioned.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#186

Post by Cider9986 »

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…

I pay $50/mo for internet, this is some nice ragebait.

You can change the feeds with extensions or modded apps for free and ads are blocked by default in any good browser.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#188

Post by Cider9986 »

timpera wrote: post #107
fontain wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They do offer a €8/month ad-free Instagram subscription in the EU. I'm subscribed, it's pretty cool.

If you used Android you can get this for free or just use it on the web with an adblocker.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#189

Post by fragmede »

bigmadshoe wrote: post #182
tgma wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who spew I'd rather pay, I'd rather pay often majorly underestimate how expensive Google and Facebook would have to be in the western world to offset the ad revenue per person. The irony is this is especially true for you if money is no object to you, as you'd be disproportionately valuable to the ad machine. It's not going to be ten bucks folks.

You can actually look this information up! For example, Instagram makes approx $2-50 ad revenue per user per year, depending on the region. Apparently it’s highest in North America. So Of course this would get pretty expensive for all the services we use. But I personally would happily throw $100-$250 per year at my most used apps to stop being advertised to.

How's your YouTube Premium subscription?

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#190

Post by pmontra »

the_af wrote: post #152
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.

> 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. I'm in WhatsApp groups with friends who live abroad, SMS is not an option. We could use another chat app, but then I'd have to convince every friend from every group to use something else. WhatsApp is what every friend I have agrees on. I belong to sever…

All it would take is WhatsApp going paid plans only. All of Europe will switch to Telegram as primary messaging platform in a couple of days. Hence a paid only WhatsApp will never happen until every plausible alternative will be made impossible either by acquisition or by law.
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