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Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

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Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#421

Post by jjulius »

LtWorf wrote: post #398
egorfine wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Time to suggest them to join Mastodon and Pixelfed Sure. Guess how many of them will actually do it? > Relying on a foreign, for-profit megacorp is a bad way to keep contact with friends. I'd say it's exactly the opposite: relying on a foreign, for-profit megacorp is currently the best way to keep contact with friends. Unfortunately.

> Guess how many of them will actually do it? That's how much they value your friendship then :)

This is getting down voted, but it's true.

I've ditched those forms of social media, and haven't really had trouble keeping in touch with most people I'd like to keep in touch with, whether it's emails, calls, texts or regular meets/activities in meatspace. The people in your life who truly care about you will make a genuine effort to remain in touch with you.

If people don't want to make that effort, why do I need to be connected to what they're doing every day?

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#422

Post by venzaspa »

dgellow wrote: post #413
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's a standard chat application, people are also using Facebook, WhatsApp, etc for illegal/immoral discussions. I've been using it as my main chat client for more than 10y and have never used or felt the need to use the community channels, it's just a great messenger. Doing illegal stuff in public Telegram channels is extremely stupid, they aren't encrypted, you're pretty much giving your information to law enforcem…

Why not settle on a chat which actually uses e2e encryption by default though?

There's truth to the Russophile comment though, Telegram is regularly used by GRU and the FSB to recruit people to commit acts of vandalism and terror and is pretty well documented. It's also commonly used to spread disinformation and conspiracy theories. My mum has fallen for several of these via Telegram.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#423

Post by timbaboon »

dabedee wrote: post #335

It's very difficult to do business in Western Europe without Whatsapp. I have probably asked more than 60 people to switch to Signal and the social burden it introduces (i.e. asking a new acquaintance to install a new app) can have negative signalling effects (e.g. you don't adapt, create more work, why do you care so much about privacy, etc.) I personally abhore Facebook (and IG,Whatsapp) and don't want to use any o…

Yep, same in South Africa. I still haven't accepted those T's & C's from a few years ago so can't chat with most businesses. In some cases there is no other option, so I just... don't use that company.

On the other hand, I've convinced a lot of my friends to get Signal. I'm the only person that they speak to on Signal, but that's fine ;)

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#424

Post by bigmadshoe »

jjulius wrote: post #411
bigmadshoe wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>... and stop being the product. You will not stop being the product if you pay.

This is true. But they would at least design the app around maximizing user satisfaction with the service (to keep you paying), vs maximizing time spent on the app (i.e. through making it addictive) in order to increase ad revenue. The current incentives are perverse.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#425

Post by [deleted] »

outime wrote: post #136
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.

[deleted]

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#426

Post by [deleted] »

AnthonyR wrote: post #328
outime wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Haha I love the super out of touch takes on here sometimes. Not using WhatsApp or Facebook where I live absolutely introduces major difficulty to communication and even every day interactions where almost 100% of communication in various social groups is happening on these platforms. Should I ask them to move?

[deleted]

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#427

Post by ilivethere »

LtWorf wrote: post #398
egorfine wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Time to suggest them to join Mastodon and Pixelfed Sure. Guess how many of them will actually do it? > Relying on a foreign, for-profit megacorp is a bad way to keep contact with friends. I'd say it's exactly the opposite: relying on a foreign, for-profit megacorp is currently the best way to keep contact with friends. Unfortunately.

> Guess how many of them will actually do it? That's how much they value your friendship then :)

I don't believe the willingness to install yet-another-messaging-app is a good measure of friendship value.

Between SMS, messenger, instagram, whatsapp, discord, slack, ms teams, signal, there's a point where juggling too much messaging apps become a burden instead of convenience.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#428

Post by skeeter2020 »

baggachipz wrote: post #410
rickcarlino wrote: post #409

Meta’s reputation has eroded so much that many will view this as an act of desperation rather than a chance to reframe social media. The idea of paying for social media to become the customer rather than the product has been both discussed and tried. There is such a deep lack of trust from years of bad deeds that I doubt anything positive will come out of this.

Not just that, but there's no mention of removing ads or tracking. So it sounds like people get to pay for the privilege of being the product on a platform which has degraded to the point of being absolutely useless.

I can't imagine the economics would work to support anything close to what they make from the ads & tracking model. They'd probably have to charge $39.99/month from everyone to compete.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#429

Post by skeeter2020 »

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…

>> product managers can justify investing in features that otherwise would be passed up due to lack of revenue potential from advertising.

Like no ads? that's usually the #1 you pay for and no mention of that.

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