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Comments (158)

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  qqtt
  I'm going to go against the grain here and say this is probably a positive thing for Meta products, and honestly every other "free" service to provide these kinds of revenue avenues.How many times do we hear things like "if the product is free, you are the product" - well, the consequence of that is development resources tend to be pulled into directions that benefit advertisers.By having material subscription revenue coming in for things outside the advertising space, the product managers can justify investing in features that otherwise would be passed up due to lack of revenue potential from advertising.Yes, in many ways Meta gets to have their cake and eat it too, because the ads are still there even with the plans, but this does give a meaningful voice to their customers who pay that they can invest in other ways outside of strictly advertising.
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  drnick1
  Just stop using Meta products. It's really not as hard as it seems. Nobody needs FB to communicate with friends and family. Send texts or emails or use your phone.
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  pj_mukh
  I would pay $49.99/mo for an unlimited plan that brings me only my friends' status updates (not their hyper-political likes and comments), just their life updates. Daily stories are great too. But JUST that, no influencers, no ads.I realize Meta's data shows that our user revealed preferences tells them that we like all the dopamine hijacking garbage but that's like saying "Well users like drugs, so we gave them more". Let me pay you to give me just the vitamins, and none of the sugar.
• boredatoms
  Does the subscription turn off ads?
• chistev
  Do you know of any successful business without a Meta presence? Is that really possible in this age? Really interested to know.They have a stranglehold on everything. It's inescapable.
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  Animats
  "It's free and always will be" - Facebook
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  YesBox
  Discord subscriptions seem to be working. People like to customize their profile (ie express themselves), even though profiles are not something frequently interacted with (that's the surprising part!)I have a server (for my game) with about 1000 people. Out of the 300 people logged in, 50 of them have custom profiles.So, it seems like a good idea for Meta.
• danpalmer
  I use WhatsApp for almost all my communication with family and friends. I'm also happy to pay for things that improve my experience....but it's unclear what this subscription would give me. The announcement has no real details, the article is light on detail, and the WhatsApp website has no mention of this subscription.I get that it's hard. What I want is a good text and call app, and that's hard to charge for at scale. But every feature that Meta has added to justify charging (AI, stories, profiles, etc), makes the product worse for me and makes me less likely to pay for it.They're in a hard place.
• kwanbix
  Before Meta aquisition, I paid 1 dollar per year for WhatsApp. Now it iwl be 35.88.
• qingcharles
  I've so far been unable to find these options in any of the apps in the USA. Anyone spotted them?
• rossjudson
  I think that subscribing to another person's life prevents you from living your own. Also, "Everything is Lies, I Guess".
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  pioyi
  Just use email...
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  ethanpil
  Anyone here remember the early days of WhatsApp, pre-Facebook, when it required an annual subscription fee of $1?
• righthand
  A lot of posters here are missing the part where people use Meta products to market their art, performance artists, visual artists, musician, digital entertainment artists, craftsmen, etc all rely on the network effect to be discovered. Until you can replace that then people wont just use email, txt their audience, etc.And just to say it is actually sad there is no alternative because most of those artists dont really gain a valuable network effect from posting there. But it is how younger unestablished peoples establish themselves as existing. There are entire comedy/music scenes that essentially require you to have an Instagram account.
• tgrowazay
  A link to the mirror that doesn’t force you to disable adblocker: https://archive.is/xGwsz
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  aspectop
  for insta and Facebook ok but for whatsapp they just wanna suck any kind of money they can. Soon whatsapp will be bloated with ads all over
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  canyp
  Seems absolutely unhinged. I don't know who'd pay to doomscroll AI-generated slop and fake news. $49.99 for the top plan, lol.
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  sometimelurker
  is meta low on $? why would they do this?
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  flufluflufluffy
  > There are also other features like Super Heart animated reactions for Stories, custom app icons, customizable fonts for profile bios, and access to additional pins for your profile.Ahh, remember the days of livejournal/myspace, where we got all of those “features” for free because your profile is literally a fucking webpage
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  iLoveOncall
  It's insane that those subscriptions don't remove ads. That's the only thing I would even remotely consider paying for on any meta product.In the current state those subscriptions will just show your friends that you're a huge loser who's willing to pay for custom backgrounds.
• torben-friis
  I'd have been happy to pay for a WhatsApp-like service if they had not been acquired. Flawless service for like a decade, no complains. Only issue was the difficulty of moving between Android and iOS.Meta? Fuck off. We all know they're already doing awful stuff with our data, they've had more bugs last year than all of whatsapps previous history combined, and whatever price they request now is step one for enshittification.
• shevy-java
  > In an announcement, Meta’s head of product, Naomi Gleit, noted that “more fun features” will be added in the future.Thank you - I don't want any of that.What exactly are "fun" features, anyway? Do they take away from my time?
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  suddenlybananas
  It's a real shame private messaging has ended up being almost exclusively closed-source without any kind of open API.
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  lolive
  I barely use all those services. But I wonder how i would react if Reddit became a paywall.
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  princevegeta89
  Interesting. Instagram and Facebook both seem to be filled with AI-generated fake crap today. Even the so-called news items that I see there seem to be fake. I don't even know who would be subscribing. Especially to Facebook as of today.... It is filled with pretty low quality content overall. On the other side, WhatsApp has been getting filled with a lot of bloat. And even today, I find it confusing to use communities in WhatsApp. The entire navigation and experience around that feature confused me a few times. There's been more and more push towards the AI crap on WhatsApp as well.The only good thing about WhatsApp is, it is used by everyone that I know, so I can connect with them pretty easily and make calls, etc. I hope they don't enshittify it too much to the point where I'll go and use Signal full time.
• qweiopqweiop
  Those features sound so narcissistic to me
• TZubiri
  It's time for that EPS to turn into BV baby!
• yokoprime
  That's not happening
• j45
  Maybe they could sell privacy/encrypted messages in the subscription after removing it.
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  meta_ai_x
  Friendly reminder: HN opinion about this will be completely-out-of-touch with reality
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  SilverElfin
  Who is this for? Is it just a way to monetize dying platforms before they inevitably become worthless?
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  CuriouslyC
  Honestly don't know how Meta keeps customers. Facebook is hanging on for dear life with geriatrics and marketplace. Insta is a cesspool of fake content that needs to die in a dumpster fire. Not sure why you'd use WhatsApp over alternatives like Signal now.It's almost like the people still using Meta services are metaphorical bots or low agency human beings.