Meta's latest subscription move is an attempt to offset its AI bets
On January 26, Meta announced that it was going to test premium subscriptions across its apps. The subscriptions will offer exclusive features and expanded AI tools, while ad-supported versions remain free.
Under the test, users are presented with a clear choice between two paths. People can subscribe to use Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp without ads, or continue using the services for free while agreeing to ongoing data use for advertising purposes.
Meta claims the subscriptions will "unlock productivity, creativity, and AI-powered features," with each app receiving its own set of paid tools rather than a single bundled plan. The company isn't committing to one configuration and plans in order to experiment with different feature sets and pricing models over time.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/01/27/metas-latest-subscription-move-is-an-attempt-to-offset-its-ai-betsOpen linkView original on pawb.social
There is a third path. Just stop being a user. Maybe that choice isn't clear enough. Push notifications are fucking evil. I removed the app and use FB as a PWA about once every six months. I might use it more if it had content from my friends or anyone I gave a fuck about, but instead it's all promotions and suggestions.
Without the little red number creating FOMO on my phone, I have no impulse to check it. Yet I check Lemmy several times a day. I check Bluesky every couple of days. Because every time I open them, someone I want to hear from is posting something I want to see. You should try that, Zuck.
I haven't touched a facebook product in almost 15 years and my life has been nothing but better for it.
Shit yeah that's about how long for me. Gods, I remember talking about how cool and futuristic Facebook was back in like 08, but in my defense I was a middle schooler. I rapidly saw it morph into a hub of unpleasantness and bailed.
There are a few things facebook is better at than anything in my life - checking up on distant friends that I wouldn't call normally but I want to know the big events in their life; ensuring my parent see pictures of my kids (we don't live in the same state). However those things only need a couple minutes of my time per day, and that isn't enough to make them a big company and so they keep shoving garbage that doesn't make my life better in my face. That garbage takes up hours per day of many people's time and is worth a lot to facebook.
For most of our history, we couldn’t check on how distant friends were doing. Except through gossip I guess. Today we can be connected for decades with people we never interact with irl. I wonder if it takes a toll mentally to be attached to so many people for so long.
Probably 4-6 months ago I finally reached my breaking point. Facebook used to be centered around friends. Sure, most of them are now dormant on the platform, but for those that were still active, they were still buried amongst piles of far-right bullshit that I never asked for and that wouldn't go away no matter how much I clicked "see less like this." I deleted the Android app and logged in via mobile browser. I still occasionally check the happenings in my industry's Facebook groups and my HOA, but Facebook is otherwise dead to me.
Man, you have no idea how old their user base is.
Productivity... on Facebook? God they are desperately need to sell you something here.
It was literally Zuck's whole pitch for VR.
Meetings! Now in 3D.
I worked there during the whole VR pitch and they tried to encourage those of us with headsets to join meetings with them.
Nobody had legs. It was a huge selling point of the Quest Pro that you could have legs.
Man, that was so tone-deaf. The dickhead workaholic thought everyone was just like him and only wanted to use it for work.
he is an android, robots dont need any sleep.
Or fun.
If they show me the pictures of my friends, while hiding all the garbage (outrage politics, "you won't believe this"...) so I spend about 2 minutes a day there and get off it would greatly increase productivity. Well it would lower mine because I almost never check facebook anymore - but my life would be enhanced if they limited themselves to the useful things they do and let me go in 2 minutes: a trade off that would be worth it.
facebook is about 90-99% bots, cant get any more productive than that.
How long until the premium version also has ads? It's the clear trend at this point.
Yup, its predictable. "No ads for money," then "no ads for money and light ads for free" then "no ads for lots of money, light ads for money, unbearbale ads for free" is literally always the model these fuckwits push too now.
A premium tier for WhatsApp? The app I want to get rid of but can't because employers can't be assed to send emails or make phone calls first?
What kind of shitass employer would require the use of WhatsApp? Do they make you use TikTok to clock in?
A huge portion of Europe runs on WhatsApp. And many places use it as their primary communication for customers.
Well I blame them for making a terrible decision there. Europe does a lot of things right, this is not one of them.
Agreed.
Indeed. It had a very quick spread when it first came out and as such it became the default way to message and call people. Nobody sends SMS. I mostly do calls through WhatsApp: I live in a foreign country and thus calling from my country's number I would occur in additional costs. I do have a phone number for the country I live in, but I don't charge it as that would require me to pay 2 phone numbers. However, across Europe internet plans do not charge extra when in another country and thus calling through WhatsApp I do not incur in extra costs.
When WhatsApp first came out that is why it became a big thing: you don't have to worry about the limit of SMS anymore. You paid 1€/year for the app and got the most basic plan which provided internet and you could send all the messages you wanted to anyone.
It’s also worth pointing out that it wasn’t always a meta app.
It's everywhere. Been looking at moving to Latin America (Uruguay or Panama specifically) and many businesses there don't even have/publish regular phone numbers. The tour companies I traveled with said you can't get anything done without whatsapp.
Man, that would be a showstopper for me. I wish they would wake up
That’s how it is in Belize and Guatemala too
All the employers where I am. Heck, they have some group chat "newsletters" and such set up to let us know of updates and things. Sometimes it'll be used for informal group chats where things aren't really binding, and reserve email for official communications.
Do people still use Meta’s products?
Instagram and WhatsApp... So hard to get people to stop. Particularly where smaller countries and people who travel are, where WhatsApp is the default phone.
So shitty.
If anyone wants to talk to me, they’ll have to use one of the myriad ways to keep in touch that don’t involve Meta. I refuse to continue to be their product and help them keep the idea alive that they should somehow be unavoidable. Meta relies entirely on the relational networks of people, so I removed my node from their system and made their product a little worse for anybody interested in engaging with me. Life is better without Meta dopamin/rage addiction anyway.
Sure, I won't use anything meta.
But it can be hard like I said. You want to make an appointment with a doctor, an electrician, flower delivery? They want your WhatsApp. You can't make an appointment without it. They can't fill out their billing system. They won't call you on your phone because your number is long distance.
Everyone just expects WhatsApp. Makes it hard.
As an American the thought of your doctor requiring WhatsApp to communicate with you is just a foreign concept lol
sure but first, as an american, you have to make sure the doctor in question is ‘in network’
None of our doctors, in network or otherwise force us to Zuck’s apps lol.
sorry, the joke was about your ‘weird’ whatsapp communications vs our totally fuken stupid healthcare middlemen only exist to extract money from the doctor/patient relationship.
Imagine if every state had a different cell phone carrier or go back even further to when it was long distance even just blocks or cities over. Now imagine a technology comes in that doesn't care what carrier you are on, or if it's long distance.
That is kind of what happened to countries. Especially if you have people who work in one and live in another or have clients in another.
So even though now maybe it isn't long distance, or carriers talk to each other, everyone is used to the way they have been doing it for free.
Perhaps this new European government push to get away from American Big Tech will free you guys of this burden
I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I understand completely. Why would your phonenumber be long distance to them?
Because people have cell plans (and no land lines anymore, like most places) that they brought from their own country or region that a lot of the time a phone call would be long distance. Or have text fees for reminders, or a combination of both. So the solution, a long time ago, was a single method that has no fees for either.
I also enjoy not being reachable for the majority of people in my life, but for different reasons.
They are reachable though.
That’s the point - you are not unreachable if you’re not hooked up to Meta’s products. Far from it - at least from a European perspective. Threema and Wire are good European alternatives to Messenger, that are actually private. But also, the telephone has been invented, and so has sms and e-mail. The important thing is the human relationship, which continues to exist regardless of the app or technology you use to speak to each other.
WhatsApp has this weird grip on my country's people, it's insane.
facebook, instangram,and whatsapp.
Log out, delete.
Unfortunately yes
Guarantee that your data still gets used to feed you ads with the "premium" subscription.
I hit this today when I went to check a local restaurant's Instagram for the menu (like many I've come across, they treat Instagram as their website)
Nope. I guess that information is now all gone to me
Between this and Twitter I'm pretty annoyed at how much harder it is to get local information without just physically going to a place compared to 5 years ago. I'm not gonna pretend it used to be perfect, but this is getting spectacularly shitty
This drives me crazy. Hopefully it’s the start of the end for FB.
Who in the fuck would do this?
I know I would be more creative if I handed Zuck my money monthly. No doubt about it.
Why the fuck do ppl still use Meta and its suite of spy apps. Not to mention he has a special set of knee pads when he cups the orange fascist shriveled nut sack.
did they ever ?
(trust Zuck, "dumb fucks")
Pays us to spy on you!
Of all the faces I hate most on planet earth, that dildo's is second.
honestly, with how much my grandfather uses facebook, and how often he clicks the stupid scam ads, this might be a valid option for him that is easier.
This ofc is if they decide to launch this program for <3$ a month. If it's anything more than that I see it flopping on entry.
edit: looking at the article, I'm seeing 4EUR/m... yea 5$ isn't horrible, but at the same time that's probably too high for him to even consider it. That's 2$ less than a yt lite premium subscription, and that's a platform where ads actually get in the way of things.
I doubt they are actually going to block scams with the subscription service. Probably just block banner ads or some shit but keep the fake posts and such.
Subscription? For Fascbook? Is this some sort of fucking joke?
These bastards got market place on lock. Luckily with graphene I sand box the tracking apps in another profile(for now). Fucken sucks though. Work/family use what's app as well. We need alternatives, but most people just dont care or think about it.
My family still uses WhatsApp all of them, except my kids (I never allowed them and I have very tight control of their devices). After a few months of not being able to send me memes and shit, they started installing Signal one after the other. Long story short, the family group is now on signal.
It’s too late. You already spent 20+ years training people to use the shittiest version you could give them.
TheFacebookMeta: We Suck and We Know It. Now give us money.So, all the bots are supposed to pay or watch add's? That's insane!
More signal users incoming
Is this image in the article AI generated or a meta replicant?
Not sure, but who needs a Voigt-Kampff test with replicants looking that bad?
I've never noticed until now that Zuckerberg looks like a giraffe.
I can't believe you would insult the noble giraffe species with such an insensitive comment.
a cylon perhaps, with thier long prehensile neck.
Keep it up asshole, keep pissing people off.
Haha. No.
Honestly, if this reduces user-hostile UI changes for paid accounts, and I can get a chronological feed of just friend activity with original content, I'd pay it at this point.
(I know there is supposed to be a friends-only feed now, but it's not even close to being friends-only still.)
It's a big if, and I don't think it will be what I want, but I'm just putting it out there that I would pay if the experience is valuable enough.
Seriously? You're gonna pay money to this guy?
I mean, do I want to give money to a billionaire? Not exactly.
On the other hand, if we don't start supporting premium software services and open source projects, the enshitiffication trend will get worse.
(I know Facebook isn't open source, but I've seen enough open source projects abandoned or enshittified due to lack of support from users.)
I have to choose among my principles, and I'm strongly against user-hostile UI/UX paradigms, enshittification, and other downward quality trends in software/services.
I pay to support my Lemmy instance, for example.
They're actively doing enshittifying, though. How are they supposed to know what you're rewarding them for?
If it's anything less than I want, I won't be rewarding them at all.
Replying to myself to follow-up.
Listen, I know it's not a popular take, but software projects and services of any size require a sizable amount of effort and time - these projects are vulnerable to acquisition, abandonment, commercialization, and enshittification without support.
I'm on Facebook because of the network effect, and if there was a way to encourage it to become a better service, the pricing is reasonable, and if I get what I want - yeah, I'd pay it.
And I'm not speaking from lack of experience - I offered my own social media service for a time that offered privacy and extra storage for a price. Not one user paid, and I had to cancel the project after losing money. Good intentions alone get you nowhere.