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Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

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Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#211

Post by komali2 »

apsurd wrote: post #112
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…

Heard it here on HN: problem is paying a subscription is purely additive. eventually, inevitably, they’ll take the subscription AND sell your data, serve you ads, etc. it being against what your payment contract states just means they’ll reinvent and rename the tiers.

It seems like there's no solution, then: companies will always chase the next dollar that allows them to exceed growth expectations on the earnings call. It seems like no matter what, anti-user behavior in pursuit of profit is inevitable.

Is there a solution to this?

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#212

Post by komali2 »

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 only way to know the correct meshtastic configs for Taiwan is to join the meshtastic Taiwan Facebook group.

Or attend an event in person. They advertise their in person events on the meshtastic Facebook group.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#213

Post by kbar13 »

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.

most-all of the algorithm-served content (not from my friends list) is ad content, even if it's not a meta-served ad.

all content (even those who make legitimate content, if they intend on making a living on content) is just ads packaged in fancy UGC. we've reached a point of no return for ads and user targeting

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#214

Post by komali2 »

skillina wrote: post #165
Larrikin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"just don't meet people because they don't communicate via your one specific method"

That statement applies to the person who won't be your friend because you don't have an Instagram, not to the person who refuses to install an arbitrary app as a precondition to becoming friends.

There's friends and there's friends.

Someone might be perfectly happy being your friend, and not understanding why you never come to their parties that they advertise via the group chat on whatever platform, or insta posts or whatever.

"If they cared enough they would message me directly on my obscure to normies messaging platform!" Yeah your best friend might. The greater social circle?

I get it, I'm trying to get everyone on signal or onto federated platforms, but I'm realizing that if I wanna talk to The People, I need to go to where The People are.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#215

Post by notsydonia »

This seems smart of them in the sense that many creator/website owners have lost significant traffic that Google used to send their way and so are reluctantly pivoting back to paying more attention to social - for discovery.

But speaking as someone who deleted a high following FB page that I probably shouldn't have because the back end of it was so infuriating, I don't understand this offering. It seems like a lot of bling and clutter. Most people who need to use Meta for biz reasons want the same thing - live support that is not a bot or a human that may as well be a bot.

And not to get too granular but if you've used IG lately, for example, you notice that trying to do anything on the back end (eg: set up up some boosted posts or schedule things) takes the user through a maze and sometimes you end up in the old legacy Facebook pages, which has links that don't relate to any of the contemporary features. It sounds minor but it essentially barely functions and each click to confirm something sends you to another section to confirm something else. You also need a FB page to do anything on an IG page and a tonne of other petty thwartings. The fact that their brand new subscriptions/Meta platform seems just as confusing is alarming. I don't know how a company with this much money can not design an un-hellish back end or offer reasonable customer support.

Their A.I. monitoring is also completely off the chain, closing accounts and locking profiles for opaque reasons that cannot be questioned.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#217

Post by rootusrootus »

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.

Ha, I fell for that the first time, not getting me twice. That was my wake up call for how insular the HN bubble is and how utterly convinced people here are that they represent or understand normies.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#218

Post by apsurd »

komali2 wrote: post #211
apsurd wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heard it here on HN: problem is paying a subscription is purely additive. eventually, inevitably, they’ll take the subscription AND sell your data, serve you ads, etc. it being against what your payment contract states just means they’ll reinvent and rename the tiers.

It seems like there's no solution, then: companies will always chase the next dollar that allows them to exceed growth expectations on the earnings call. It seems like no matter what, anti-user behavior in pursuit of profit is inevitable. Is there a solution to this?

well Apple is stated as an easy counter example. They charge money for premium hardware and software. everything else is downstream. So while they could squeeze at every possible opportunity, they are less incentivized to abuse the relationship because their core proposition is: you pay money for our premium hardware and software.

it’s imperfect but contrasts this with the modern approach of grow at all costs, light money on fire and punt entirely on how to ever make money. it usually doesn’t end well for customers.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#219

Post by komali2 »

fsflover wrote: post #55
dreamcompiler wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This works for friends and family members who are computer geeks. Signal for everybody else.

I don't see what's missing in Matrix. Yes, the verification may be somewhat cumbersome, but I helped to deal with it, and it just works now.

> Yes, the verification may be somewhat cumbersome

It's a hard blocker. I was running an engineering co-op off it and the onboarding difficulties was what finally led us to switch to discord.

All members are good engineers, but the client apps just had too many rough edges.

I really want the project to succeed so I'll keep checking in on it every year.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#220

Post by adjejmxbdjdn »

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…

> By having material subscription revenue coming in for things outside the advertising space, the product managers can justify investing in features that otherwise would be passed up due to lack of revenue potential from advertising.

You’re a Meta decision maker presented with 3 options. Which one do you pick? (remember, you’re not you…you’re a Meta decision maker trying to justify a trillion dollar valuation).

- Possible additional ad revenues

- Possible additional subscription revenues

- Possible additional ad and subscription revenues

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