To be clear: I prefer to pay for things instead of having to see ads but 13€ / month!? For a meta product that has inherently user-hostile design patterns even without ads?

Who does this appeal to?

  • Hyzerflip@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    They don’t want you to pay. They set the price artificially high to discourage you so they continue business as usual while complying to the laws. The price is a PITA charge to make it worth their while and to still profit from the ads they would have shown you.

    • AttackPanda@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      I’ve never used IG but I feel like it would be a $3.99/month type of service. This price just tells us they are making way more than that serving ads or that your ad data alone is worth a decent bit of cash.

        • jarfil@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          It’s a -$10/month type of service, they’d have to pay me in order to use it… and they’d still be making money on the data and ads.

      • SamBBMe@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It’s weird in that most users would value it at $3.99 a month, but the average user also scrolls for several hours a month, with each one of those hours packed with ads.

        This equates to way more than $4 in revenue a month.

    • jarfil@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      They set the price artificially high

      Actually… it’s likely only slightly higher than what they get from ads per user, and still lower than what they get from compiling and selling all the information you agree to give them.

      Users tend to severely underestimate how much their cumulative data can be sold for.

  • sim642@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Now we know how much they’re making with tracking and ads per user.

    • Patches@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      They are still going to be tracking you. That isn’t going away.

      They just won’t use the tracking for the explicit reason of creating ads for you. But that’s only because you are paying for no ads.

      I guarantee the data is logged for all other purposes, and that the data is logged for future ad usage if you ever unsubscribe.

      Secondly this doesn’t necessarily equate the profit from your specific ads. This is the result of a legal battle within the EU. That’s the only reason it exists. The price is determined as ‘high enough to not get into more legal trouble’.

      https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/10/30/ad-free-subscription-versions-of-facebook-and-instagram-to-start-in-the-eu#:~:text=The US tech giant is,before showing ads to users.

      • whofearsthenight@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Meta already demonstrably does this. I deleted my real Facebook in like 2016. Around 2019-2020, I created a new burner account to browse Marketplace with nearly all fake info expect my name, phone, and email. And lo and behold all of my friend suggestions are people I know and mostly were on the old account. The most charitable I can imagine is that those suggestion had me in their contacts which they agree to share with Facebook (which is problematic af imo) but it is extremely likely they just retain all of data especially since many of the people I was suggested have never had my current number/email.

        • jarfil@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          You deleted your real Facebook account… but did you delete the anonymous shadow account…?

          It’s not that Facebook hasn’t deleted the data from your real account, it’s that they keep tons of “anonymous” shadow accounts, each one of us probably has a dozen of them from different interactions with Facebook, and your new account most likely got suggestions from getting paired with those.

        • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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          11 months ago

          There is this neat horrifying thing the Facebook app does by tracking your location and figuring out where you work in order to suggest colleagues you can add as well as I have noticed just tracking if you happen to be near another device with a unique account on it.

          The huge swath of very intimate data they are collecting on us is so not ok and they have all kinds of creepy stuff they don’t even admit too.

          • whofearsthenight@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            From me? Of course not. Unfortunately, I do live in society and do have to share my contact info with others, and I’m guessing the vast majority of people just spam the “okay” button as Facebook asks for contact access, mic access, camera access, access to your colon, etc.

      • dasgoat@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I also think this subscription model has run into criticism from EU legislators/regulators as well, which will have to be decided upon. Basically Meta isn’t out of the doghouse yet.

        Really, I’d say strip Meta of all its assets and dissolve the whole thing, maybe try some of the heads for all the shit they’ve pulled in the ICC? Like failing to act on genocides or actively working to incite mass violence, political unrest, etcetera.

      • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        Oh the data will absolutely be used for ads elsewhere. It’s just how the ad game works. It’s all interconnected. I also don’t think it’s inherently bad, it’s just what it is. It’s how targeted ads work. They will be stopping that. They just also won’t have to buy data themselves about you because they’re not showing you ads anymore.

    • turmacar@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I think this is much more likely what they think people will pay. And/or what they think a percentage of people will pay that will cover costs/lost revenue from other users leaving. They have basically zero incentive to make it a 1-to-1 replacement.

      • Patches@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        If capitalism has taught us anything.

        The cost of goods to produce is almost never equal to, or related to, to the sale price.

    • somenonewho@feddit.de
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      11 months ago

      Yup just wanted to comment that it’s basically the “Yes you can track me” button vs the “I will pay” button. A lot of news sites already do the same thing. Not a paywall with content you can only see when payed but a pay or give consent to ads (which means tracking)

  • Kekzkrieger@feddit.de
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    11 months ago

    Just quit, these platform thrive on user generated content while selling your data and now they want money from you so you continue to create content for them.

    All because they make you believe that you NEED them to stay in contact and up to date. In reality it’s much nicer to speak with friends personally, show a few pics and talk about your/their experience.

    Too often when i still used that social media crap people would just cut me off with “yeah i’ve seen that already on fb,insta etc.” and no experience shared.

    Being off social media, as weird as that sounds, made me feel more social and it’s more fun to interact with ppl again.

  • 𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖈𝖍@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I have absolutely zero faith in Instagram’s ability to manage this. They can’t even handle account access right. I use IG for business (I’m a performer) and have been locked out for a month with full access to my Facebook, email, authenticator app, phone, other accounts - you name it. Their shit is just straight up broken and throws error messages when trying to log in.

    • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Meta is absolute shit when it comes to supporting their users. I “deleted” my original Facebook account that I started in 2005 (you can’t actually delete an account, only deactivate it, which is bullshit) around 2008 or 2009, and created a new one. Somehow someone started posting diet ads from that account about 13 years later (about 6 months back).

      I emailed support and said someone had hacked my old account and was posting diet ads as me, but I no longer had access to the account because it was supposed to be removed over a decade ago. The profile pictures of both accounts were clearly the same person (me), the email addresses were the same, and so were the displayed account names. Support said they couldn’t do anything about it because they couldn’t verify that I owned the account that was posting ads! 🤦‍♂️🤬

      I sent them a response that pretty much said “are you fucking joking right now?!” and didnt get a response back, but the ads apparently stopped.

  • kratoz29@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Products!? I thought they were services…

    Anyway I don’t see myself ever paying for social media LMAO, and even less now that I know about the Fediverse… Seems like a VIP lounge for us if you ask me, and I’m okay with that.

    • jarfil@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      On Meta, you pay so they don’t use some of your data for showing you ads, while they collect tons more of data on you and sell it to the highest bidder.

      On the Fediverse, you only give everyone access to all your published data for free to run whatever analysis they want on it… but at least you can choose from 1000+ different instances to pick the one that will be able to track your behavioral data.

  • 31415926535@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Phone got stolen last year. New phone, installed instagram, tried to log into account, but locked out.

    Instagram tech support told me I either had to: 1) take a photo of myself, they’d check if it matched any selfies in my account, or; 2) I had to associate my Facebook profile.

    I’m security conscious enough to not post selfies online, nor use Facebook. Goodbye instagram.

    • hushable@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Twice I’ve been blocked out of my account, the first time it was because I was accessing from too many different IP address (VPN). The second time.I didn’t even bother to contact support and was willing to loose my account.

      Also, I recall many years ago in the early days of the app there was an app update that would straight up not work on my phone and had to sideload an old apk in order to keep using it. And according to google I wasn’t the only one.

      Took me a few months of manually testing new updates until a newer version worked for me. Not to defend Facebook or Twitter, but a fuck up like that one would never make it past their QA teams.

  • Chup@feddit.de
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    11 months ago

    It’s disappointing that they only exclude the information use regarding ads.

    So they will still track everything users do and profile them, just like any other free user. And they can sell to everyone else who pays for user data (e.g. AI learning, market research etc.). With that wording, they could even sell to ad companies, if they e.g. use the data for some algorithm optimisation in their tech department. So they leave the door open to keep selling the data to 3rd parties, while already charging the user ‘starting at’ 12.99€.

  • MrSqueezles@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    I want to make the, “free”, moniker illegal. Advertisers have to pay money for ads and they get that money from us when we buy their products. In addition to having to look at ads, we also have to pay money for the privilege of looking at them. Any ad supported service is objectively not free. No thanks.

    • sceada@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Any ad supported service is objectively not free. No thanks.

      Well of course not, why should it be free? Neither Meta nor Google, TikTok etc. are charitable Organizations, they are businesses with the intent to make money. Either you pay or you see Ads, or don’t use the service, it’s that simple.

      • Iapar@feddit.de
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        11 months ago

        So you aggressively agree with the person you respond to or what is this?

  • YⓄ乙 @aussie.zone
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    11 months ago

    Lol people actually pay for shit like this ?

    Not to mention $13? Looool

    • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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      11 months ago

      13 bucks to allow meta to use your the photos you upload (that creates all the content on the site) to however the fuck they want as well as collect all your data to sell things back to you better and sell your profile to other sites.

      Megacorps need to die.