Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 533 posts

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#191

Post by pmontra »

schubidubiduba wrote: post #103
apsurd wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe for a second you'd pay $50 per month! Yeah you'd do it to prove a point. 6 months later, no way in hell.

I think I would pay it. The peace of mind knowing that my every move isn't tracked and being used to sell me stuff or engagement bait me is invaluable tbh

At best they will honor the contract of not tracking your moves through that app. They will use part of your money to buy the information about your moves from other sources, or track you with another app.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#192

Post by tgma »

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.

If you are in the US and in a demographic who posts on Hacker News, $100-$250 is likely below your monthly revenue contribution to Google alone.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#193

Post by okanat »

pmontra wrote: post #183
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.

Whatsapp metadata is one of the strongest signals about you. Your friends and family and your patterns of texting tells quite a bit information about you.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#194

Post by charcircuit »

fsflover wrote: post #29
tim-projects wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mastodon and Matrix do rely on a single easy to target server.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#195

Post by bmitc »

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…

That's ignoring that WhatsApp has been free for a long time and was end to end encrypted. Then a multi billion dollar corporation bought it and has slowly whittled away at it.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#196

Post by bmitc »

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're assuming that your own data has no cost. They get data from you for free.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#197

Post by okanat »

angled wrote: post #162
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…

Aren't people here old enough to recall paying for WhatsApp's original subscription fee? Circa 2016: https://www.techspot.com/news/63504-whatsapp-waves-goodbye-a...

Whatsapp wasn't owned by Facebook at the time..

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#198

Post by rozap »

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're right it's a good thing, but I think they're maybe 10 years too late. The issue is that their product is hateful, non-functional, and my feelings toward the brand are probably more negative than any other brand I can think of. So why would I give them money? It's a tough sell.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#200

Post by okanat »

HnUser12 wrote: post #166
WarmWash wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You may not get ads in the app, but they can still sell your data for other services who will give you ads.

Or even if you block all ads, the statistical value of your data is still important for showing ads to people like you and people around you.
Post reply on HN