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Ad-free Facebook, Instagram access planned for $14 per month in Europe (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Uh, no. The system is:

The law requires us to disable tracking by default for all users
We can't make hundreds of billions of dollars per year with tracking disabled
So - make the service $14/month by default, unless you opt-in.
It's win/win. If users pay $14, they make huge profits. If users opt in to tracking, they make huge profits.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

they don't 'win' if europeans tell zuk to take a hike in sufficient numbers. decline the tracking for 'free' use and declining the paid option.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

So basically decline to use Facebook? I’m skeptical. People will just opt in to the tracking, most people don’t care. Or maybe they’ll post on Facebook about how they don’t like it.

Even if they did and chose to go to some other platform, they’ll eventually run up against the same business model decisions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The question is how it affects their numbers. When a company like Facebook misses growth (or, god forbid, actually shrinks) the market punishes them for it.

That said, Zuck is not Elon. I’m more confident FB has a plan and isn’t just shooting from the hip. They likely have a model for some shrinkage and decided on $14 because X% of users are expected to accept targeting, Y% will abandon the platform (or decrease engagement), and Z% will pay. I bet they picked a number that would make Z small but not non-existent.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Well yeah I guess I am just highly skeptical that it will meaningfully affect their numbers. By and large anyone who is still on Facebook either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care about this (or some combo of both).

I’m just trying to imagine the person who didn’t know Facebook was tracking them, but now with this opt in will understand the ramifications of that and abandon the Facebook platform. It’s hard for me to see this being anything more than a rounding error on their numbers.