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.
Pays us to spy on you!
So, all the bots are supposed to pay or watch add’s? That’s insane!
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 there 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.
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.
Agreed.
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
Meta claims the subscriptions will "unlock productivity
Productivity… on Facebook? God they are desperately need to sell you something here.
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.
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.
facebook is about 90-99% bots, cant get any more productive than that.
users are presented with a clear choice between two paths
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 haven’t 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.
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.
I haven’t touched a facebook product in almost 15 years and my life has been nothing but better for it.
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.
What is mentioned as pros are cons to me haha. The idea of sharing stuff so people can just catch up on your life without even contacting you just seemed like a creepy concept to me from the beginning.
I’ve preferred people just contact me directly or I contact them instead of documenting life events for people to browse through. Then there’s facebook having all those photos and messages and personal documentation to have a very strong profile on you that adds to the additional creep factor.
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.
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.
Man, you have no idea how old their user base is.
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.
I know I would be more creative if I handed Zuck my money monthly. No doubt about it.
TheFacebookMeta: We Suck and We Know It. Now give us money.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.
Guarantee that your data still gets used to feed you ads with the “premium” subscription.
Who in the fuck would do this?
Of all the faces I hate most on planet earth, that dildo’s is second.
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.
Instagram is one of the shittiest social media since it goes out of its way to become unviewable for those that aren’t logged in. So its a really shitty platform to use in place of a regular site.
More signal users incoming
It’s too late. You already spent 20+ years training people to use the shittiest version you could give them.
