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Ad-free Facebook, Instagram access planned for $14 per month in Europe

arstechnica.com

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Re: Ad-free Facebook, Instagram access planned for $14 per month in Europe

#61

Post by paxys »

jerf wrote: post #47
TekMol wrote: post #37

I think this is a "trick" to get around the GDPR. Many European newspapers already do this: The GDPR says that it is not allowed that the user who denies their personal data to be stored experiences negative consequences because of that. So in theory, behavioral advertising is dead in Europe. Because nobody would voluntarily agree to be tracked. For some reason, many companies go the "Our service is available in two…

"I wonder how it could be legal, because not having free access is a negative consequence, isn't it?" I think even in Europe the claim that any company has an obligation to serve you for 100% free, getting nothing out of it whatsoever, is not going to fly very far. It isn't even a moral issue per se; it's just impossible. Companies need some sort of income. One can speculate on how nice it would be if that were not t…

If you look at the number of official government announcements, emergency broadcasts, breaking news, communications by politicians and various state and local bodies etc. from all over the world that are posted exclusively on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, you can easily make a case that free access to them is necessary.

Re: Ad-free Facebook, Instagram access planned for $14 per month in Europe

#62

Post by paxys »

whelp_24 wrote: post #60
paxys wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is there to deanonymize? Facebook isn't selling anonymized data. The aren't selling any data.

The ad space is data. If you chose the right categories you can reasonably identify someone. The whole purpose of behavioral advertising is to identify groups, you can make those groups =1 if your clever. Look up deanonymization. It's one of those problems that also affect researchers because it's hard to keep db data anonymous too.

You need to read up on how online advertising works. Or better yet spend a couple of dollars and try it yourself. None of what you are saying makes any sense.

Re: Ad-free Facebook, Instagram access planned for $14 per month in Europe

#63

Post by XCSme »

CSMastermind wrote: post #38

Facebook is basically the only place on the internet where I actually like the ads. I've discovered and bought many products from them and Facebook gives me a clean way to block and report ads that I think are bad. Honestly my biggest complaint is that I'll often see something in a Facebook ad, want to buy it 2 months later and there's no way for me to look up which ads I saw on Facebook 2 months ago.

Instagram is the same, right?

Re: Ad-free Facebook, Instagram access planned for $14 per month in Europe

#64

Post by BizarroLand »

yomlica8 wrote: post #54
i_am_jl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if creating a paid tier of users that won't see ads significantly devalues Meta's advertising proposition. From the perspective of an advertiser, I don't really see the appeal in running an ad on a platform where all the users who have signaled they have disposable income and are willing to pay for online services don't see any ads.

No problem, just sell their user data for a premium so they can be advertised too in other ways. Its worth squeezing this one in many extra ways since, as you said, they've signaled they are valuable targets. Plus Meta can also change it to limited ads later and sell those for bigger money.

Depending on the ad system and your user tracking /fingerprinting setup, you can get that information and then track the user to other places on the internet and then show ads to them there.

Re: Ad-free Facebook, Instagram access planned for $14 per month in Europe

#65

Post by randomdata »

pkulak wrote: post #41
dax_ wrote: post #33

Judging from the article, it seems that the only reason for this is to shut down regulators with this argument: "You want us to stop tracking users? Users already have that option, it's a subscription". So I believe the pricing is intentionally outrageous, it's not really meant as a reasonable choice.

Yeah, I can't see that they are pulling in close to that number per month with ads.

Price is determined by how much someone is willing to pay, not by how much you might have made if you had a different business model.

There is no magical formula in determining how much someone will pay beyond offering a price and see if anyone bites. It may turn out that $14 is too high and they will have to temper their expectations later. But maybe $14 will turn out to be just fine and people will be quite willing to spend that much.

If you are using Meta properties so frequently that you notice it has ads, it is likely that you can find more than $14 worth of value from your usage. If you can't even muster a paltry $14 worth of value from using it over the course of a month, why are you using it at all?

Re: Ad-free Facebook, Instagram access planned for $14 per month in Europe

#66

Post by infinityio »

i_am_jl wrote: post #51
aunty_helen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potentially these paying users weren’t the market anyway. Someone willing to pay to not see your ads maybe hostile to any brand forcing them in front of their eyeballs.

That's possible. I thought most people with that mindset would be running adblockers, so probably wouldn't be interested in paying for an ad-free experience. I'm sure there are people who aren't aware of adblockers or aren't savvy enough to use them, but how many?

Perhaps on desktop, but (for example) an iPhone user on Instagram has no easy way to avoid being advertised to

Re: Ad-free Facebook, Instagram access planned for $14 per month in Europe

#67

Post by voisin »

jeremiahlee wrote: post #3

Meta’s monthly average revenue per user in Europe was $5.96 as of 2023-Q2. $14/month is quite the premium to opt out of its privacy invasion. Does Meta really think it is worth more to people than Spotify or Disney+? ARPU source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average...

You assume that paid users are actually option out of privacy invasion. They aren’t seeing ads but that doesn’t mean Meta isn’t invading privacy to continue to build a profile if you and those who you connect with regardless of payment.

Re: Ad-free Facebook, Instagram access planned for $14 per month in Europe

#68

Post by CSMastermind »

XCSme wrote: post #63
CSMastermind wrote: post #38

Facebook is basically the only place on the internet where I actually like the ads. I've discovered and bought many products from them and Facebook gives me a clean way to block and report ads that I think are bad. Honestly my biggest complaint is that I'll often see something in a Facebook ad, want to buy it 2 months later and there's no way for me to look up which ads I saw on Facebook 2 months ago.

Instagram is the same, right?

Yeah they're identical from what I've observed. I see the exact same ads on my Facebook and Instagram feeds.

Re: Ad-free Facebook, Instagram access planned for $14 per month in Europe

#69

Post by o10449366 »

Gasp0de wrote: post #40

Will it give me the option to only see stuff from people I follow? Because the worst part of Facebook and Instagram is not the ads but the content that is shown to me to keep me engaged. I want to scroll my friends pictures and when there are no new pictures I want the feed to stop. I'd pay for this even if am still shown targeted ads.

This is already a feature and has been for a long time. Instagram allows you to only see posts from people you follow and will tell you when you've seen all new content from the past X days.
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