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Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

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Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#431

Post by contubernio »

prmoustache wrote: post #312
contubernio wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Spain whatsapp is universal and necessary for everything personal and professional. Some hard core committed communists prefer telegram, but even they usually have to have whatsapp too. No one uses signal or even knows what it is.

I am living in spain and I never used whatsapp professionally. I've had a few messages sent by medical clinics to confirm appointment, delivery workers to drop a package or some others pros but if you don't have whatsapp they just call you anyway so it is not necessary. Most people in Spain still rely and prefer voice calls than messages anyway. I believe half the country must still be illiterate as they manage to se…

Absolutely inaccurate. I am nationalized Spaniard living here 2+ decades. Almost no one over 50 calls on the phone and when they do they almost always send a message first. The large public institution I work in is removing landlines completely because they get too little use to justify the cost.

I am (mostly against my will) in multiple professional and personal Whatsapp groups. Use is constant and daily and unavoidable. It is the principal means of communication in both work and personal settings. Calls are always a second option.

I suspect your experience reflects only partial integration in local culture.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#432

Post by jjulius »

bigmadshoe wrote: post #424
jjulius wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>... 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.

That's a nice idea, but then there are all of the times we've started paying for services to have an ad-free experience, only to then have them toss ads back into the mix.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#433

Post by skeeter2020 »

bko wrote: post #419
akdev1l wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would you want people to think you're poor or cheap, except maybe when you're shopping for a car. Personally, I don’t generally think about how other people perceive if I have money or not.

Ah, you must be one of those that cuts his own hair, shops strictly at thrift shops and wears bags as shoes.

Maybe hthe GP is confident enough to have passed by the shallow indicator of displaying their wealth? The richest people I know personally (and who I deeply respect) absolutely delight in people under-estimating them, assuming they're "poor plebs" like the rest of us. They like money, recognize it's important and appreciate what it allows, but feel no need to advertise it.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#434

Post by skeeter2020 »

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.

>> So This is only true if everyone does it; Why would they stop advertising for a tiny market, especially if they can get both? Why decrease the value of the tracking on a smaller userbase? Sales conversion says you'd have to charge $50 or $500 a month and you'd have a much smaller base; does social media like this even work with a fraction of the people?

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#436

Post by skeeter2020 »

ipaddr wrote: post #269
tgma wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've never paid Google for anything. I usually get a check from them. What does Google sell? Office clone, ads, map api credits, search api credits, ad free youtube, ai credits sometimes phones and speakers that get bricked?

everyone of those things is built around data collection and tracking, which feeds their ad machine.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#437

Post by Marsymars »

w-ll wrote: post #257
skillina wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I maintain Meta accounts for two purposes. Facebook Marketplace, and following local businesses on Instagram because it's become the de facto platform for many artists/bars/restaurants/popups to distribute information. I don't add friends, I don't "like" posts, and I don't doomscroll the garbage they put in my feed. I'm willing to give Meta the information that I enjoy old cars, bar trivia, and breakfast sandwich pop…

What does facebook marketplace have over craigslist?

Locally, craigslist was never a thing. I cross-post everything I sell to Facebook and Kijiji, but I get an order of magnitude more sales from my Facebook posts. (And Kijiji has gated certain categories behind a paywall, so e.g. I can't post a $20 car part without paying $5 for the ad.)

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#438

Post by abdullahkhalids »

tgma wrote: post #292
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you include the money required to pay shareholders, pay the humongous parts of the company doing ad tech, the lobbying money, the fine money, etc. What is the cost of running a social media site? I have previously calculated that Mastodon costs including development are on the order of 1 EUR/person/year [1]. Even if you 10x it, it's nothing. Facebook does nothing more technically complicated than the forums…

I am not. I am explicitly saying to offset revenue from ads. That's a different question. Best of luck getting Facebook-level distribution in your 1 EUR Mastodon.

There are no technical reasons preventing the Mastodon federated network from scaling to billions of users. An individual server might not be able to scale to even 10 million users, but that is by design. There should be thousands or better tens of thousands of servers each supporting a small number of users, with moderation handled at the server level.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#439

Post by pbiggar »

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…

We work on helping people move to Signal from WhatsApp. It'll be easier once they have a Communities feature, as WhatsApp is very far ahead there.

The main advice we got is that although you need to migrate individuals, the main focus should be on migrating channels. If you have a family group chat, that's the target. Tell people about how Meta spies on them, etc, and then support everyone in the channel to individually set up Signal if necessary.

Re: Meta launches Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp subscriptions

#440

Post by bondarchuk »

TrackerFF wrote: post #352
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…

I think it is interesting to see how fractured things are even in western Europe. I'm in Scandinavia, and at least here, Messenger is by far the most dominant messaging app. Meta in general has a really tight grip here.

Whatsapp is also from Meta.
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