5 or 6 years ago when I was much more heavily using Facebook I would have loved for this to be a thing. I think it would have been a great addition and is something that should be encouraged. Hopefully transitioning more and more away from us being the product and what we are actually using being the product.<p>However there are 2 big issues with this.<p>I doubt that Facebook will stop mining us for data and continuing to view us as a product, just now with an additional revenue. For me that was always the bigger of the 2 issues, showing me ads was just the symptom.<p>The second is how else to they incentivize people to subscribe. Is enough ads enough? Probably not and that is the issue we are seeing with Twitter. Adding in extra features to incentivize subscribing that likely shouldn't be there.
Lots of people here simply thinking it's a question of whether this is something you'd buy, as if the EU regulators are going to countenance this for so much as a femtosecond.<p>They will <i>not</i>, and the implied quid-pro-quo of "extreme ongoing privacy violation is what we get for not charging people" will make them <i>more</i> angry, not less, and is an _extremely_ dumb idea for them to be pushing in this context because it actually cements regulators' belief that Meta has no interest whatsoever in behaving itself.<p>The EU is not <i>empowered</i> to let Meta <i>break the law</i>. This is NOT a thing.
I'll be honest. If Meta decides to start charging subscription for any type of ad-free experience, I'm simply not going to use it. Because they're still going to be mining my data. And doing all kinds of shit with it. I only consent because I <i>need</i> to interact with certain people (read: family members) and not really because I want to be on that platform at all.<p>For some inexplicable reason, talking to me via WhatsApp just seems to be too much effort (and _that_'s still a Meta platform).
Ok but if you pay for the subscription fee does that mean they can't sell your data to other brokers or anyone else or does it simply stop ads from being served to you?
The problem of serving ads that I block anyway isn't what bothers me the most when I use facebook (i.e. when I have to). The main problem is that meta tracks everything they can about me and keep it forever. And I can never trust that they won't do it, no matter the legislation.
Because advertisers are only waiting to only get the eyeballs that can't pay their way out of the platform's ads.<p>Like cable TV, streaming services, and various other outlets this will be a "premium service" until they reintroduce ads for that premium tier.
The trick with this would be preventing it from being abused as an opt-in lever.<p>Aka 'Meta decides to charge a $199/month fee for ad-free Facebook and Instagram' (or free with ads)
Credit Bureau<p>I wonder how much of Meta's problems would go away if they just became an official Bureau since it gets exclusions from Data Broker, etc. use cases.
I think the alternative is that creators/influencers do even more ad-content on their accounts... which ends up with non-paying users getting inundated with ads + ads baked into content. Only an issue if the subscription model gains traction I suppose.<p>Some businesses (spotify, pandora) would kill to have the success with ads that meta/facebook has had.... and I'm sure during the downturn at the beginning of the year metabook would've killed for the consistent subscription revenue... so really interesting to see where this goes.
A lot of the comments here are missing the picture...<p>They may be trying such deals because they just found out that behavioral advertising is ilegal under GDPR without consent. And also, under GDPR, people should be able to decline without a degraded service. They first tried to place consent in the ToS, and failing that they tried declaring it a "legitimate interest". Except it isn't and a DPA ruled as such. "The cost of doing business" may become significant.<p>So they may be trying this deal because they are screwed in the EU, offering a subscription as an alternative. Except that this too will be deemed ilegal.<p>People saying that they'll sell that data anyway are missing the point: (1) they are not selling data because they aren't stupid, and (2) the EU is making their business model ilegal within the EU.
I actually don't have problems with ads. Never did. I think the ad-driven business model was better for the internet since most services/information sites were free. Now most things are locked behind paywalls.
Article is behind a paywall.<p>Going from the title: How took it Meta this long to invent a reasonable offering for their EU market?<p>I'm not a Meta user, but I'd gladly pay a subscription for whatever online service offers me most.