[HN Gopher] Facebook Announces Meta Verified
___________________________________________________________________
Facebook Announces Meta Verified
Author : chirau
Score : 133 points
Date : 2023-02-19 16:03 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.facebook.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.facebook.com)
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Feels like this is the wrong approach for Meta, given that
| they're paying creators in various ways now. Turning around and
| demanding them send some money back to get protection against
| impersonators is going to seem very unfriendly.
| dazc wrote:
| I can't wait to verify my account with Govt id!
|
| Then I remember my account is blocked because I failed at the
| opportunity to do this for free.
| Animats wrote:
| "It's free and it always will be" disappeared back in 2019.
|
| [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/08/27/facebook-
| no-l...
| joe_the_user wrote:
| But is this a bad thing?
|
| It's signal they'll stop bothering the anonymous Facebook
| accounts my friends have. Why not let those few people wanting
| Facebook verification have it?
| wodenokoto wrote:
| It also costs money to buy ads on facebook. So not everything
| facebook offers has been free for quite some time.
| j-bos wrote:
| These bold slogans seem to be pretty good canaries, like when
| google removed "don't be evil"
| tptacek wrote:
| Google never removed "don't be evil", but that's a super
| common urban legend, because Gizmodo ran an (incorrect) story
| headlined "Google Removes 'Don't Be Evil' Clause From Its
| Code of Conduct". You can just go look at their code of
| conduct and see that this is false.
|
| (I don't care, and don't think "don't be evil" really ever
| meant much, but urban legends drive me a little batty.)
| SamvitJ wrote:
| Confirmed: search for "don't be evil" in the Code of
| Conduct here: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-
| of-conduct/. It's there at the end.
| detourdog wrote:
| I never thought it was part of the code of conduct. I
| thought it was the answer to the business plan question
| before they decided on advertising or maybe their motto.
| [deleted]
| msm_ wrote:
| Interesting. I was even at Google when they "removed" it, I
| remember the internal uproar about "removing" it, and I was
| sure it was removed. Of course now you reminded me that the
| problem was "just" changing the "main" slogan to "do the
| right thing", and it was not actually removed. Funny how
| memories work.
| HaZeust wrote:
| To be clear, they moved it to the bottom - but I still can't
| comprehend why they did that. It did no favors to the public
| relations, LOTS of senior staff resigned, there was no legal
| binding to it - so they even could have just kept it there at
| the top and just... not mean it. Maybe I need perspective.
| tpmx wrote:
| "imgur will never have ads"
|
| Still kind of upset that that immediately obvious lie back in
| back in 2009 paid off.
|
| I was there in the background noise in that first reddit
| post, saying the obvious.
|
| It would not surprise me one bit if it turned out that the
| reddit founders manipulated that one post to make it go the
| right way.
| everdrive wrote:
| At least they didn't claim "imgur will never get bought out
| by another company and require tracking javascript to even
| view images."
| stavros wrote:
| imgz.org will definitely never have ads.
| tpmx wrote:
| But it isn't free. Edit: I see a hustler got me to flog
| his paid saas. Apologies.
| stavros wrote:
| Yes, that's why it'll never have ads.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I don't think that was ever an official statement?
| culturestate wrote:
| It was at the very top of Google's corporate code of
| conduct until[1] 2018.
|
| 1. https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-
| of-do...
| charcircuit wrote:
| It's still in it in 2023.
|
| https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/
| culturestate wrote:
| This is how that document _used to_ begin:
|
| _> Preface
|
| "Don't be evil." Googlers generally apply those words to
| how we serve our users. But "Don't be evil" is much more
| than that. Yes, it's about providing our users unbiased
| access to information, focusing on their needs and giving
| them the best products and services that we can. But it's
| also about doing the right thing more generally -
| following the law, acting honorably, and treating co-
| workers with courtesy and respect.
|
| The Google Code of Conduct is one of the ways we put
| "Don't be evil" into practice. ... _
| motbus3 wrote:
| Ubiased here is a bit off isn't it? Since they put
| results of ads to some queries, this is a kind of a bias
| :thinking:
| tptacek wrote:
| This article is apparently a clickbait urban legend.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34269029
| wcarss wrote:
| I mean, if you read that article, it makes it pretty
| clear that the phrase is retained in the final sentence,
| but was once much more prominently placed. It doesn't
| claim that the phrase is completely gone -- it has the
| same information Wikipedia has. Are you claiming that
| article and Wikipedia are both just making things up
| here?
| tptacek wrote:
| The headline of this article is "Google Removes 'Don't Be
| Evil' Clause From Its Code of Conduct". There's really
| not much to argue about here. Read headline, pull up code
| of conduct, command-F search, done.
| wcarss wrote:
| Google removed the "don't be evil"-preface, which I
| suppose technically isn't a "clause"...
|
| So really, you're implying the article claims something
| more extreme than it _actually_ claims... which is a
| little like starting your _own_ clickbait urban legend -
| how meta!
| tptacek wrote:
| The article opens:
|
| _Google's unofficial motto has long been the simple
| phrase "don't be evil." But that's over, according to the
| code of conduct that Google distributes to its employees.
| The phrase was removed sometime in late April or early
| May, archives hosted by the Wayback Machine show._
| [deleted]
| charcircuit wrote:
| Google never removed it.
|
| https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/
| corobo wrote:
| It used to be their motto. It's now a footnote in their
| code of conduct.
|
| Don't Be Evil was relegated to a weird basement desk and
| had its stapler taken off it back in 2018.
| basch wrote:
| I'm shocked they didn't pull the "we said Facebook would be
| free, not meta checkmarks."
|
| Imagine being able to rename your company to exempt yourself
| from the terms you wrote, because your new name isn't in the
| terms.
| kps wrote:
| Renaming the company is extreme, but Steve Jobs at Apple
| renamed projects at least twice (Mac OS 7.7, Rhapsody) to
| back out of commitments.
| [deleted]
| dgudkov wrote:
| "It's free and it always will be" disappears together with
| zero-interest rates.
| KKKKkkkk1 wrote:
| Remember when Twitter instituted a forever policy of remote
| work that lasted a whole of two years?
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/01/twitter...
| echelon wrote:
| That was Jack Dorsey. Jack Dorsey doubled down on the policy
| for his other company, Square. Some of their leadership and
| highest ranking employees are fully remote. I'd bet against
| this policy ending.
|
| Elon canceled WFH for a multitude of reasons. Mainly to
| encourage willing employees to leave and those that remained
| to work harder.
| moomin wrote:
| If you still believe people work harder in the office I
| don't know what to tell you.
| chillbill wrote:
| There are some very valid reasons why it should be
| encouraged to work from the office, and yea they do
| include productive hard work, I've heard this first hand
| from both bosses working in big and small companies and
| from employees. The group that appreciates work from
| office and has noticeable productivity improvement is new
| recruits and fresh grads that move to get a job, as they
| need new friends, and if there's no office culture and
| work colleagues to have lunch with or at least the
| occasional AW, then they get lonely, unproductive and
| they eventually leave.
|
| For older more mature people who have families it's an
| amazing gift to be able to work from home, for some it
| absolutely isn't. The point is that you can decide how to
| run things in your company and try to be flexible.
| motbus3 wrote:
| It is true in my opinion, but most bosses I heard just
| think employees are cheating their work and this is
| something I do not agree.
|
| I've worked for a company who had to go full remote due
| to covid and productivity increase a lot because people
| were not being bothered by senseless interruptions and
| calls.
|
| When asked why move back to the office in a meeting where
| people could ask "anything", the CEO just said he doesn't
| believe in working from home and he does not want that
| for the company but provided zero reasons for his
| beliefs. :/
|
| Also commuting is such a pain that it makes me feel
| depressed. I took about 2h each leg and sometimes it was
| even worse. I usually get so much earlier in the office
| to avoid not being late and I had to simply not do
| anything as I could never leaver earlier too :(
| greenthrow wrote:
| Your comment tells me you don't know what you are talking
| about. I have been working in tech for more than two
| decades, tons of that in offices and tons of it remote.
| Different people thrive in different environments. Some
| people who are very productive remotely will struggle in
| an office. Some will do both in either. Some do better in
| offices. Not every office is the same either. When Google
| first started introducing the kind of office benefits
| they did in the early 2000s people said silly things not
| unlike your comment; those benefits "spoil" employees,
| there's no way they will have good productivity when they
| make the office like a resort hotel, etc.
|
| Don't be a reactionary. Think about things more and
| you'll be right more often than you are now.
| lumb63 wrote:
| > Not every office is the same.
|
| This has been my experience as well. Also, not every
| company is the same. When COVID hit, I started working
| remote, and the company was very poorly equipped to deal
| with work from home. Communication disappeared and
| culture died out. I stopped being interested in my work
| and left the team, and later, the company.
|
| Fast forward to my new company. It's remote-first. More
| than half the workforce is remote and it saves the
| company what I'd imagine to be a pretty sum in office
| supplies, rent, etc. I'm hybrid now, but 90% of the time
| is remote. I'm much happier now than in my old remote
| experience. I don't have to commute and I haven't missed
| out on any of the perks of an office because of the
| company structure and techniques, and a few other
| decisions by myself.
|
| The things I think are game changers:
|
| - Slack, or similar. My old company used Teams. It was
| slow and buggy and I disliked it. Having channels is a
| game changer for remote work! Being able to have channels
| with many people creates a place for banter and common,
| shared experiences. That makes a remote team feel much
| more personal.
|
| - Having a good home office. My first stint with remote
| work, I was ill prepared. I had no desk and was working
| at the dining room table. I had no good peripherals, no
| good chair, etc. Not a good environment. Now I have a
| standing desk, a mouse and keyboard I enjoy, nice
| monitors, a good chair, a separate area of the house
| dedicated to work. This has made a huge difference in my
| mindset. I'm "at work" by being in an area of my home I
| reserved exclusively for work, and I'm comfortable in it.
| I dread going into the office where the water doesn't
| taste as good, the air is stale, there's little natural
| light, I have limited control over my environment. I'm
| now much more productive at home. As a bonus, I get back
| an hour (or more, depending on traffic) of my day, and
| save myself all the accompanying stress of commuting.
| mulmen wrote:
| In office employees definitely work harder.
|
| They spend time commuting. They suffer constant
| distractions. They deal with physically relocating in the
| office multiple times per day. They experience physical
| discomfort in an environment they cannot control.
|
| What in office employees don't do is deliver more value
| per minute to the company because they waste energy just
| trying to exist in an office.
| wayeq wrote:
| yeah but... the free snacks...
| [deleted]
| elvis10ten wrote:
| Why do we have to go completely for or against something.
| There are pros and cons to both. Situations where one
| trumps the other. Why can't we have both?
|
| > What in office employees don't do is deliver more value
| per minute
|
| Isn't this contextual?
|
| > They spend time commuting
|
| Also this. Commute can be productive especially in cities
| where people can safely cycle to the office.
|
| > They suffer constant distractions.
|
| Lots of the folks I meet in the office currently, have
| more distractions at home.
|
| > They experience physical discomfort in an environment
| they cannot control.
|
| "home" is not the opposite for many people.
| lkrubner wrote:
| People take a lot of time off when they work from home. I
| am as guilty of this as anyone. People tend to focus more
| on work while they are in an office. Also, it is much
| easier for managers to organize the work when the people
| being organized are within line-of-site. The pattern I've
| seen emerge at New York City startups is:
|
| 1. the leadership and most important employees meet at
| the office 3 to 4 days a week.
|
| 2. less important employees are allowed to work from home
|
| The workers in group 2 are in direct competition with
| outsourcing firms in India, Vietnam, Brazil, etc. If you
| are just an average frontend programmer, and allowed to
| work from home, there is a good chance that your work can
| be sent overseas. So workers in this group are seeing
| more downward pressure on their wages, and have a more
| precarious position.
| TheCleric wrote:
| I call bull on this. I work HARDER at home. When there's
| no clean delineation between where you work and where you
| live it's a lot easier to work late or on the weekend
| because your commute is all of 10 seconds.
|
| This is absolutely unhealthy behavior, but my WFH
| problems have never been because I'm slacking off since
| I'm at home.
|
| People with integrity will work. People without integrity
| will find ways of avoiding work. Location doesn't matter.
| Hire or work with the former; avoid the latter.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| Well, I am not going to waste time I spend in the office
| on working. Not after the pandemic and realizing human
| society can be taken away at blink of an eye. Have an
| hour and a half lunch, talk to teammates about their
| lives. Work is for home.
| echelon wrote:
| I didn't say that.
|
| Also, think about those on an H-1B. Their options are
| limited.
| mc32 wrote:
| Some do and are able to manage their time very well;
| others cannot and without the structure of the office are
| left floundering and apt to not be available for
| communication for prolonged periods...
| Havoc wrote:
| Ad supported _and_ paid. Oh joy
| tarkin2 wrote:
| I guess it could fight against fake profiles manipulating the
| online social commons
| blobster wrote:
| We already do identity verification in the real world, it's
| called government issued IDs.
|
| There should be opt-in OS-level identity verification based on
| zero knowledge proofs and tied to your government-issued digital
| ID. This also solves issues like preventing minors from accessing
| adult sites, etc.
|
| I should not have to verify with 1000 third parties and hand over
| my personal data and then hope it's handled properly and doesn't
| get leaked. We have zero knowledge proofs and we can get OS
| makers to make this seamless for us.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Yes... but then you have the same arguments that are used to
| claim Voter ID is voter suppression...
| epgui wrote:
| Not if it's opt-in and not required to access critical
| services.
| lmm wrote:
| People want to use this for critical services. I already
| found I couldn't contact my country's passport agency
| except by Twitter, for example.
| mertd wrote:
| Then what is the value proposition?
| gonzo41 wrote:
| In other countries, they exist, to vote you just register
| with the independent voting commission, and on the day they
| confirm your registered address and give you the paper forms.
| No voter id required.
|
| The OP can verify with proper ID and be safe. The gov just
| needs to regulate that rather than keep copies of all the
| originals. They just have something like a checkbox, where
| you're either verified or not and a human / smart system is
| involved and no record is permanently kept of the docs.
|
| Anyway, I don't anticipate this feature working out for meta.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| This uses a government ID for the actual identity and most of
| the "verification". I'm not sure what more you're looking for?
| Facebook can't use zKP because existing government IDs don't
| support that.
|
| And there is no OS in this case, it's a product feature for
| Facebook that allows users of Facebook to be told that Facebook
| verified the account's government ID.
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| There should be none of those things.
|
| Fuck that.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| The EU now has eIDAS. All it lacks is widespread adoption.
| everdrive wrote:
| >There should be opt-in OS-level identity
|
| This will be the end of a lot of things, to include the
| internet we grew up with in the 90s. It's holding on by a hair,
| but you can still visit personally-owned and hosted websites,
| and not run any non-free code.
| wfbarks wrote:
| * Tim Cook has entered the chat *
| [deleted]
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| Is this in reaction to, or because of Twitter? Many seemed yo
| have denounced the paid verification feature, but does this
| signal that it's something people will pay for?
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Perhaps neither. The post indicates that it's rolling out in
| Australia first. Australia has been, for years, working toward
| tying social media use to authenticated identity.
|
| Imagine paying for this...
| dawnerd wrote:
| Likely something they've been working on way longer than it was
| a thought at Twitter.
| kjksf wrote:
| Uber re-wrote their 1 million loc mobile app in 3 months.
|
| How much time should it take to implement a subscription
| payment?
|
| With all the respect to Facebook scale, more than 1 month
| would be a failure.
|
| I'm not saying that Facebook did it because Twitter did it,
| but the timing of it seems more than a coincidence and they
| are using the same justification for doing it as Twitter.
|
| It's quite likely that Twitter doing it successfully overcame
| the risk aversion that large corporations are oversupplied
| with.
|
| https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/uber-app-rewrite-yolo/
| dawnerd wrote:
| Facebook isn't a start up, thinks are not moving as quick
| as you think. The actual development probably went fast but
| the PM meetings, legal, etc all take a long time. I bet
| this has been in the works in some form since Apple's
| crackdown on tracking.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| The format of pages, content structure and reach of facebook,
| linked to real world profiles and people, means that having a
| verified account makes a lot more sense.
|
| Twitter is an announcement platform. Facebook is a discussion
| platform. Comments, replies to comments, no content length
| limit, ability to upvote, etc.
| DethNinja wrote:
| It is valuable for business administrator accounts but I don't
| see the value for the average user.
| qualudeheart wrote:
| Elon has proven a point.
| kundi wrote:
| We had a case where our ad account got hacked through an agency
| that was managing it and set up ads for enormous amounts, which
| drained all our funds within 2 days. After praising and trying to
| get it solved and refunded, after 6 months we still haven't come
| to a conclusion with Facebook's poor customer service. During
| that time we were unable to use their platform to recover the
| funds on the ad accounts. I'm not sure how they plan to improve
| the customer service, but this attempt just feels like pouring
| more frustration to our team with Facebook.
| xwdv wrote:
| You know I hope this is the start of finally normalizing paid
| subscriptions for social networks, because it means eventually
| someone may try to build a social network funded purely by
| subscriptions rather than ads, and then we might finally have
| simple timelines again that aren't focused on maximizing user
| views and retention through algorithms. The result can be a less
| enraging and addicting experience for users.
| zh3 wrote:
| Let's see - on Facebook the rules were always you had to use your
| real name.
|
| Now they're charging us for it?
| mcraiha wrote:
| Will this generate any meaningful revenue for any company? AFAIK
| Twitter has 300 000 global paying users. And I assume you would
| need few million paying users before this has any meaningful
| effect. https://www.theinformation.com/articles/musks-twitter-
| has-ju...
| abzolv wrote:
| What about the verified status can change, that merits a
| recurring charge versus a once-off charge? Can you suddenly morph
| into "not you"?
| tmikaeld wrote:
| Other accounts flagging you for not being you, is a very real
| thing on FB.
|
| I've had relatives loose two account into limbo, because of
| this and yes - even after being "verified" on one of them.
|
| I guess the logic is that if someone took over your account, so
| you're no longer you.
| abzolv wrote:
| Why would that merit a recurring charge? In other words, what
| ongoing expense is incurred by the company to display a
| particular icon next to your name?
| tmikaeld wrote:
| You'd only be verified as long as you're paying, stop
| paying and that account is no longer verified.
| toastal wrote:
| I liked the Keybase model better for verification. Why do we need
| monthly fees?
| rejectfinite wrote:
| HN this is not for you. This is for celebs and inportant people.
| gowld wrote:
| What a creative, innovative, idea that could only come from the
| rare genius that deserves a $multi-billion ownership stake in the
| company.
| tleilaxu wrote:
| Who on earth would look at what Twitter are doing right now and
| think "Hey, we should copy that! That seems to be working well!"
|
| Facebook... apparently.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| It is worth noting that Meta is also in a financial death
| spiral, just like Twitter, so the comparison doesn't just stop
| there.
|
| They've made a massive gamble on pivoting to VR to save them
| from irrelevance but that seemingly has already flopped.
| poopypoopington wrote:
| "Financial death spiral"
|
| $120B in revenue, $20B in profit last year
| Someone1234 wrote:
| That's a 4.47% decline year-over-year. Stock -15% YOY vs
| -5% for the SP500.
|
| Unless they pivot soon, they're in deep trouble, with a
| declining user base (particularly young people) and a
| consistent loss in ad revenues. One big problem Meta has is
| they went "all in" on a VR bet, that isn't working.
| rvz wrote:
| "deep trouble"
|
| In 'deep trouble' with 2 billion daily active users on
| each platform: Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp,
| resulting in the stock doubling in less than 3 months of
| screaming about the chorus of the end of times for Meta.
|
| I guess betting against HN is somewhat a profitable move
| when everyone was scared to buy the stock at $88.
| jaapbadlands wrote:
| What makes you say "isn't working"? VR and the Metaverse
| are long term bets, they're not meant to be working yet.
| Far too early to write off as failures.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Ads are more important in an infinite money low interest rate
| environment.
|
| Now that they are coming back a closer to normal, providing
| normal services start to make a bit more sense for companies.
| celestialcheese wrote:
| It's almost as if the media narrative around Twitter might not
| match reality.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| By all means go ahead and inform us on the actual reality?
| This is what I had read:
|
| > Overall, advertising spending by the top 30 companies fell
| by 42% to an estimated $53.8 million for November and
| December combined, according to Pathmatics, despite an
| increase in spending by six of them.
|
| Is that inaccurate and if so, why?
| celestialcheese wrote:
| The next sentence of that quote is pretty illustrative.
|
| > Pathmatics said the previously unreported figures on
| Twitter advertising are estimates. The firm bases its
| estimates on technologies that track ads on desktop
| browsers and the Twitter app as well as those that mimic
| user experience.
|
| > But the company said those estimates do not account for
| deals advertisers may receive from Twitter, or promoted
| trends and accounts. "It is possible the spending data
| could be higher for some brands" if Twitter is offering
| incentives, Pathmatics said in an email.
|
| It's all speculation across the board - people want musk to
| finally fail, and that possibility produces some delicious
| schadenfreude. I am in this industry, and don't trust for a
| second the estimates "Pathmatics" cites. Everytime I've
| seen these types estimates on properties where I know the
| real numbers, they are off significantly, in both
| directions.
|
| The numbers come from comps, and some sampling of Desktop
| ad impressions and a twitter client. That's so far away
| from what the real numbers are that it's just a fuzzy
| guess.
|
| 1 - https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/01/19/twitter-musk-
| consum....
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Twitter went from an unprofitable business to a very
| unprofitable business. It may be comforting to call it a
| "media narrative" but facts are facts. Maybe they can somehow
| turn it around but I don't see how.
| urmish wrote:
| this is straight up false.
| flangola7 wrote:
| Which part? It's public knowledge that Twitter was barely
| afloat before Musk. Since then most of the pumps
| (advertisers) keeping water out of the ship have been
| lost overboard.
|
| Twitter's debt management alone is a billion dollars per
| month.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Got any financial documents about it that you'd care to
| share? I'm sure they'd be of interest. I was also under
| the impression that Musk blew a huge hole in the finances
| of an already marginal business, but I don't think I or
| anyone besides Twitter insiders actually have the numbers
| now.
| vishal0123 wrote:
| Calling it "facts are facts" without any source does not
| make it true.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| You're right. I had something to say but didn't take the
| time to support it.
|
| https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/02/10/tech/twitter-top-
| advertis...
| vishal0123 wrote:
| TBH, that is the definition of media narrative. I don't
| see any dollar value in the report for twitter losses. It
| could be that the market is flexible and those
| advertisers were replaced by someone else(not saying that
| happened, but the article is hardly proof of twitter's
| losses)
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I think it becomes troublesome when the data is
| confidential and the company is private. Do we just not
| talk about anything when we don't have hard data?
|
| On the other hand, they are reporting a study that they
| may have even paid for and don't actually share the
| details of the study. So I certainly see your point.
|
| On the other other hand, I think the "soft" signals like
| Elon asking people to hit the like button for ads, or the
| various reports of orgs pulling their ad campaigns
| suggests that there is general distress. Which is what's
| on my mind when I think it's more than a "narrative,"
| which I tend to interpret as hand wavy "media bias" used
| to explain away anything that doesn't support one's own
| narrative.
| cinntaile wrote:
| That doesn't sound accurate. Considering all the lay-offs
| and other cost cuts it should have gone from very
| unprofitable to unprofitable.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Over half their advertisers have yet to return. Might be
| why Elon is personally promoting ads.
| dmix wrote:
| Source?
|
| Edit: 625 out of 1000 top companies advertising in sept
| weren't advertising in first weeks of Jan.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/10/tech/twitter-top-
| advertiser-d...
| jackson1442 wrote:
| They're also saddled with billions in interest payments
| on Elon's debt now, so markedly worse off than before.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| what is the reality? pretty hard to find anything positive to
| counter how much ad revenue twitter has lost
| lagniappe wrote:
| [dead]
| CharlesW wrote:
| I personally like this. However, the pricing is bonkers and
| demonstrates how out of touch Zuck is.
|
| "It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?" -- Lucille
| Bluth
|
| Sorry Meta, I'm not giving you $576/year (family of 4) ongoing.
| Validate that I am who I say I am for a one-time fee of $99, or
| $19/person/year, and I'm in. I'll even pony up $29/person/year
| for a "no ads" plan.
| shp0ngle wrote:
| It would make sense as a 12 usd one-time payment. But as an
| ongoing service, it's laughably overpriced.
|
| 12 dollars per month??? for a blue badge? Really?
| digianarchist wrote:
| Thousands of rubes doing just that for Twitter Blue. Zuck would
| be foolish to not take advantage of the same market.
| [deleted]
| hypothesis wrote:
| They absolutely should charge it if people are willing to pay
| that much.
| shp0ngle wrote:
| Well let's see who actually pays 12 dollars ongoing monthly
| payments for a blue badge.
|
| that's more than basic monthly netflix
| impulser_ wrote:
| I don't think the target audience of this service is regular
| user, but instead they are targeting companies and influencers
| who would definitely pay this price to protect their brand and
| image on FB and Instagram.
| mr90210 wrote:
| When I left Facebook in 2016/17 and later Twitter in 2020, I
| didn't know how how much freedom and mental ease I was buying for
| my future-self.
| replicanteven wrote:
| Shortsighted. If they're willing to stoop this low, they should
| have started by selling multiple kinds of badges for smaller
| monthly amounts.
|
| $0.99/mo for emojis. $1.99/ to show your support for various
| causes. $3.99/ for sports teams. $4.99/ for ID verification.
| $0.49/ of your red cross badge goes to earthquake survivors.
|
| Like virtual hats, but for social media.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| "I am not a bot/intelligence services construct/foreign troll
| masquerading as an citizen etc.". Is a pretty valuable service
| for the network.
|
| Right now it's a property not advertised to network
| participants. But in the near future you might seem the
| following above unverified accounts posting about controversial
| topics
|
| "Careful. This person could not be identified. They may be a
| bot or falsifying their identify to misrepresent opinion"
|
| At which point, the value of verification goes up. Maybe.
| janalsncm wrote:
| It's not a valuable service to me though. All of my friends
| have verified me in real life. An extra badge doesn't add
| anything.
|
| Twitter is different because I assume most people haven't met
| their followers IRL.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| I have family members that have hundreds of people they've
| never met on their friends lists. Some of those
| personalities are obvious scammers/grifters etc. But aging
| people have diminished capacity for detecting that kind of
| stuff.
|
| Example:
|
| My MIL is 'friends' with a prominent US based surgeon who
| is also a leading founder in a biotech company. He
| convinced her to buy stock in said biotech company, when
| its price was peaking. Of course it was a classic pump and
| dump and the value plummeted a few weeks later.
|
| Would identity guard rails have saved her? Possibly not.
| But telling her "if you don't see a verified XYZ they are a
| scammer" might move the needle.
| wombat_trouble wrote:
| > "I am not a bot/intelligence services construct/foreign
| troll masquerading as an citizen etc.". Is a pretty valuable
| service for the network.
|
| It is valuable to Facebook to maintain a healthy pltform. But
| is it really worth $15 a month to you to broadcast this to
| others?
|
| Unless the culture of the platform shifts to a point where
| non-verified accounts are considered second-class, the only
| reason to pay this is basically as a status symbol. In which
| case, I think the tiered approach makes more sense. And maybe
| "Facebook Gold" for people who want to pay even more for a
| badge....
|
| Twitter had their checkmarks established as an artificially
| constrained status symbol you couldn't buy with money... and
| then, under Musk, they altered the terms of the deal by
| saying you have to pay, but you get tangible perks in terms
| of platform features, visibility of your content, etc. Unless
| Facebook wants to do that, I can't see people paying this
| much on their own...
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| Personally, I wouldn't pay Meta because their platform is
| already beyond salvageable IMO.
|
| But in principle, I think networks should charge their
| users and provide services, and identity is the most-in-
| need service the internet lacks.
|
| Will users pay for identity? Probably not, but one can
| dream.
| neverrroot wrote:
| Would be glad to pay, if my privacy will be respected, and I
| won't just be now paying money for the same stuff. Actually I'd
| rather more companies transition to paying models, instead of
| spying on me however way they can to ensure they can make money.
| Would you also? Or would you rather have it free regardless of
| what that implies?
| benatkin wrote:
| If it was fair it wouldn't verify itself.
| hownottowrite wrote:
| Maybe just fix targeted ads and get back to making money?
| [deleted]
| DueDilligence wrote:
| .. yawn. next.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| Genius to announce this after Twitter. Musk gets all the flak and
| takes the weight so they can do the same thing and everyone will
| think it's cool as they are used to the idea and Zuckerberg is
| nothing special to get inflamed about as he keeps himself quiet.
|
| Probably standard PR tactics than genius upon reflection!
| kevincrane wrote:
| ...does anyone think this is cool?
| nojs wrote:
| I think the bigger news is they're offering "priority customer
| support" for a monthly fee. Imagine if this became a trend among
| other big tech companies.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Imagine that. No wait, lots of tech companies that have
| customers (i.e. one way or another directly paying for stuff)
| offer "priority support" (i.e. 1 on 1 with an actual human).
| It's expensive and eats i to your profits but it's necessary.
| anonymousab wrote:
| In an ideal world that could be nice. In practice the allure of
| ignoring support problems under the guise of "the automation
| says there's nothing we can do" is far too high, and eventually
| pervades all manner of tech company user accounts unless
| legislatively punished.
|
| As we see with paid Google customers, business and otherwise.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| I don't really care about my Facebook account but I would
| absolutely pay $100+/yr to ensure I have some recourse should I
| ever be locked out of my gmail account.
| devnullbrain wrote:
| Why not use another email provider for <$100/yr?
| kevinventullo wrote:
| Honestly, momentum.
| amf12 wrote:
| This already exists btw. Have you checked out Google
| Workspace Individual subscription?
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I have heard about many gotchas that appear if an account
| is "upgraded" to Workspace. No longer on the happy path, so
| a variety of services and features no longer work the same
| as a free account.
| StrLght wrote:
| I believe it's already a thing with a lot of companies.
|
| I worked at a company that had restaurant delivery app, very
| similar to Uber Eats / DoorDash (but not in the US). ~10% of
| top spenders there got priority support.
| pleb_nz wrote:
| I think it might already be. A few times in the last month I've
| stumbled across sites with this offering when
| joining/subscribing (the names escape me now) and everytime I
| thought who would pay for that? Now you mention it clicked
| maybe it's a new thing?
| logicalmonster wrote:
| This is an interesting sneaky way of making social media a
| subscription service for many, but I'd think the benefits for
| any business seriously using social media are probably good
| enough to justify the fee. That said, why offer 2 different
| payments for web and mobile? This just introduces too much
| confusion for an entirely new concept like this.
|
| Anything that gives people some possibility of human contact in
| the event of a problem is a welcome baby step forward, but this
| isn't really good enough. If Meta screws up something with
| blocking/banning your account and you're not subscribed, are
| you still completely unable to get in touch with anybody, for
| any price? These are the people slipping through the gaps that
| I worry about.
| ShrimpHawk wrote:
| >That said, why offer 2 different payments for web and
| mobile?
|
| Mobile (Google Play, Apple App Store) takes a cut from
| transactions made through them. Companies don't want to lose
| money. Companies have been doing this for as long they could.
| It is not anything new.
|
| https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-
| developer/answ...
| neogodless wrote:
| ... and eliminates all ads from your user experience?
| fullshark wrote:
| I think it's for content creators / official accounts, so
| basically people want to advertise or do public relations
| moreso than consumers.
| DueDilligence wrote:
| .. yawn. next.
| wcerfgba wrote:
| Can anyone steelman an argument that this move won't make
| verification and blue ticks effectively useless for determinig
| the authenticity of accounts?
|
| My initial thought is that this creates an incentive for the
| companies to have more permissive verification processes, since
| that would make sales easier and reduce costs.
| [deleted]
| neogodless wrote:
| Previous related submissions:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34859919 1 hour ago (22
| comments)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34858691 3 hours ago (77
| comments)
|
| Both point to Facebook post by Mark Zuckerberg:
|
| > Meta Verified -- a subscription service that lets you verify
| your account with a government ID, get a blue badge, get extra
| impersonation protection against accounts claiming to be you, and
| get direct access to customer support.
| jasongill wrote:
| > extra impersonation protection against accounts claiming to
| be you
|
| My tech-ignorant father-in-law who has 3 friends on Instagram
| had a fake profile created that was identical to his and
| matched his username except 1 minor character difference. I
| reported it to Facebook and the reply was "We get so many
| requests, we haven't had time to review yours, so we are
| closing it out. Sorry."
|
| Funny that now you can pay $12/mo for them to... maybe not
| ignore reports of impersonators?
| wongarsu wrote:
| "we were overwhelmed with requests, so now we charge money to
| process them" sounds reasonable. It also aligns incentives:
| Facebook now has a reason to have enough support people to
| respond to requests from paying customers, otherwise they
| might stop paying.
| mmastrac wrote:
| It's cute, but the joke's on them: I don't really use Facebook
| for anything but marketplace these days. Cutting social media use
| has been a great boost for my mental health.
| Imnimo wrote:
| Maybe I'm behind the times, but isn't the whole deal of Facebook
| that I've chosen to be friends with these people who I know in
| real life? Why do I need them to be verified?
| wodenokoto wrote:
| You don't.
|
| This is for the Lady Gaga's and Elon Musks of facebook.
| Followers want to be able to know if they are following the
| real deal, and the real deal wants to be certain that they can
| be differentiated from the fakes.
| wg0 wrote:
| There would be 20,000 such Stars paying 10 dollars a month.
| Than what?
| Imnimo wrote:
| I must not understand how Facebook works anymore. I didn't
| realize you can follow people, I thought you just sent mutual
| friend requests.
| [deleted]
| bsaul wrote:
| Anyone else find this announcement totally pathetic ?
|
| In what world does anyone care about meta impersonation anymore ?
| Does anyone make public announcement on meta beside meta
| employees ?
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Worse yet, it's clear they have no ideas or understanding why
| this was a bad idea at Twitter.
|
| It's just copying for copying sake.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| Was it a bad idea at twitter? Or was Musks handling of the
| whole situation just crap?
|
| If Musk had made an impassioned case about why, and engaged
| peoples concerns in a grown-up way it might have gone better.
| bionade24 wrote:
| It certainly was the handling and the strategy how they'd
| introduce it. First, they obviously should haven't
| repurposed an existing badge. Im my opinion, setting a
| lower price in the 1st three months and openly
| communicating that the price will increase a bit seems like
| a choice to get quick adoption. 8$/month is too high when
| people can't experience the value of it yet.
| labrador wrote:
| > In what world does anyone care about meta impersonation
| anymore?
|
| My 84 yr old mother does. It really annoys her when someone
| steals her profile picture, makes an account in her name and
| starts sending friend requests to her friends. I told her
| Facebook could fix this easily but they don't want to.
|
| Now I can tell her they want to charge her to fix it.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Verification won't even fix it, anyways. People taken in by
| the scammers aren't gonna go hunting for a verification
| badge.
|
| "You are already friends with someone by this name" warnings
| would be a lot more helpful.
| hackernewds wrote:
| are they scammers?
| gowld wrote:
| Yes. Or, if the target person is famous, it could be used
| for defamation or harassment.
| labrador wrote:
| It's happened to my mother several times. Nearest I can
| tell, they want to see her non-public posts for advertising
| purposes and this is why Facebook doesn't fix it. More
| money for them. It causes her a significant amount of
| distress, so simply put, Mark Zuckerberg abuses the
| elderly.
| [deleted]
| advisedwang wrote:
| Will this actually solve this? Her account may be verified
| but that doesn't stop another unverified account from
| spoofing her.
|
| The announcement mentions "impersonation protection against
| accounts claiming to be you" but I'm skeptical how advanced
| that's going to be. It can't stop name reuse (because real
| people have the same name). And preventing someone creating a
| second account with the same image would be perfectly
| possible today, with no verification system, so I doubt
| that's it either.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| It's a chicken and egg problem. You want people to start
| ignoring unverified accounts and make the social
| expectation that only verified accounts are good. But
| people. won't do so until it's common.
|
| Once established it's a great network effect. But networks
| with effects are hard to start.
| janalsncm wrote:
| I don't know what goes into the verification system but if
| it requires an ID that would prevent most amateur spoofs.
| jjeaff wrote:
| You are assuming that everyone the spoofer contacts is
| going to know that grandma is a verified user and so this
| can't be her. Of course, the vast majority of people
| would not give it a second thought and so this would have
| no effect on the spoofing problem.
| hammock wrote:
| We may find it pathetic for a different reason - when everyone
| was so down on Elon taking over Twitter and how he was running
| it into the ground, and now Meta is saying actually that's not
| a bad idea, in fact it's a great idea and we're going to do it
| even to the point of taking a huge blow to our ego
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| Asking people to pay for services is always a good thing. If
| Metas only revenue is information peddling, expect the lowest
| common denominator product.
|
| And anything pushing internet identity forward is also good.
| With the rise of chatgpt verification of "human" is going to be
| important.
| agilob wrote:
| So I get to be verified ONCE, but pay monthly for the same thing
| I have to do to unblock my hacked account? No extra benefits,
| like fewer ads and sponsored tailored content?
| [deleted]
| seydor wrote:
| Quite desperate of these companies to charge their most important
| assets, the influencers/publishers. $10 is the cost to run their
| own website with complete editorial freedom, and if people want
| to follow them, get an RSS reader. The whole advantage of
| FB/twitter is that it 's cheaper and broader.
|
| And this model doesnt even scale up. FB makes ~$60 per user/year
| which is comparable. If people start verifying en masse, they
| dont have the capacity to really verify the users identity, that
| the users haven't sold their accounts etc etc. They are shooting
| their moneymaker here
|
| What i like about these payment schemes is that they put a real
| value on the company, based on what customers are willing to pay
| for the service, not the nebulous advertising return. The results
| of these programs should also inform investors about the true
| value of the companies.
| [deleted]
| weberer wrote:
| >which will let users verify their accounts using a government ID
| and get a blue badge, as it looks to help content creators grow
| and build communities
|
| Useless bullshit. I was hoping for a paid model where you can get
| rid of ads for good. Instagram has become unusable over the past
| year as they shove ads into more and more places. Its like
| reading a book and every time you turn the page, you have a
| random chance of getting smacked in the face.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| I don't have an Instagram account, so please excuse my
| ignorance, but I was under the assumption that a lot of content
| on Instagram is "sponsored content" anyway? So you're looking
| at ads anyway?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Depends how you curate your feed.
| Schiphol wrote:
| Is there a way to curate away those sponsored posts?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Sure. Unfollow when you see one.
| caskstrength wrote:
| Are you from 2012 or something? Instagram has been
| showing promoted posts from accounts I'm not following
| for ages.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Those are just ads. The posts up thread making a
| distinction between ads and sponsored content I take to
| mean influencers shilling company products/services
| directly in posts outside of the Facebook ad network.
| schrodinger wrote:
| I definitely see posts from accounts I'm not following.
| lancesells wrote:
| Don't follow people with more than 5000 followers.
| kylecordes wrote:
| Instagram used to be mostly photos from people I knew or
| followed or whatever. Nowadays it is 95%
| ads/sponsored/influencer content. Almost pointless to visit.
| But I think this might be a result mostly of people not
| posting photos as much.
| criddell wrote:
| You can turn off their recommendations (stuff you don't
| follow) 30 days at a time. I do that and only see stuff
| posted by my friends, and ads.
| technion wrote:
| The irony is that the most promoted company on Facebook isn't
| paying for those ads with sponsorship.
|
| I just opened Facebook and here's the top "suggested post".
| Of course it's a "news" story, which is itself just a repost
| of someone's Tiktok video. The Tiktok logo is prominently
| displayed in the tumbnail.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/YJoiR4A
|
| In between all that content, is Facebook Reels. Most promoted
| Reels are just reposts from Tiktok. There was literally a
| "Content Creator" named "It's gone viral on Tiktok!" that for
| a while was the most commonly promoted Facebook reel I would
| see.
|
| Edit: here's a screenshot of Reels:
| https://imgur.com/a/OhVvbSf
| [deleted]
| profstasiak wrote:
| problam with paying to stop ads is - the people most willing to
| pay to stop ads are richer than average and meta earns more
| from serving ads to them than they are willing to pay
| blehn wrote:
| YouTube made 28bn in ad revenue and probably somewhere in the
| range of 5-10bn (and growing) in ad-free subscription revenue
| last year, so it's clearly a viable model even if what you
| say is partially true. That said, I'd argue that YouTube's
| content is far more valuable than Meta's, and its ads are far
| more intrusive, so the incentive to pay is much higher.
| hyperbovine wrote:
| That's a good point, I had never looked at it that way. But
| here's my counterpoint: the people willing to pay to stop
| seeing ads are the ones who are most hostile, and therefore
| least susceptible, to online advertising. I've been online
| since the early 90s and I could probably count on one hand
| the number of times I've intentionally clicked on an ad.
| playingalong wrote:
| Still, I guess you are not that certain how many times an
| ad has affected your subconscious and triggered some change
| in your commercial decisions later on. The whole brand
| awareness, etc.
| freediverx wrote:
| [dead]
| fredgrott wrote:
| Question, does this even matter?
|
| We can already buy any fake press release...verification is just
| a visual cue online akin to a press release indicating that its
| value is now somewhat below zero.
| kvgr wrote:
| This will be retracted in 2 weeks.
| manishsharan wrote:
| Can we all take a moment to enjoy the sounds of social media's
| business model imploding ?
| danShumway wrote:
| Notably, it appears you'll still see ads and get tracked.
|
| Websites tracking their users and shoving ads in their faces
| isn't really the "alternative" to paid services. It's something
| paid services often do in addition to charging money, because
| they're unwilling to leave any money on the table in any
| situation, and you can always get more money by charging your
| users _and_ harvesting their data.
| rileyphone wrote:
| The users willing to pay for a monthly subscription are much
| higher value for ads than those who don't, simple as.
| nixcraft wrote:
| Elon Musk said there would be another subscription option for a
| Twitter app like YouTube premium with zero ads for those who
| can afford it. He said the price would be more than Twitter
| blue, and work is in progress. The question is, how many
| premium ad-free subscriptions can one person get? YouTube?
| Tumblr? Twitter? Facebook? Insta? It could easily be $100 per
| month.
| danShumway wrote:
| > He said the price would be more than Twitter blue
|
| This is the other thing that pops up, in the rare instances
| where services like this are offered, they're often pretty
| inflated. It's notable that Youtube Premium comes with a
| music service and it's impossible to de-bundle them. I
| honestly think that part of the reason for this is to make
| people think that ad-free services aren't economically
| feasible.
|
| I'm supposed to believe that the cost to Twitter to deliver
| ad-free and tracking-free text streams is _higher_ than the
| cost for Netflix /Google to stream unlimited HD video to all
| of my devices on demand.
|
| > The question is, how many premium ad-free subscriptions can
| one person get? YouTube? Tumblr? Twitter? Facebook? Insta? It
| could easily be $100 per month.
|
| The thing is, what we're seeing is a push to monetize more
| services through subscriptions anyway. Like, this is a better
| argument if Twitter and Facebook aren't both pushing people
| to give them roughly $10 a month anyway.
|
| I think that the advertising industry and traditional media
| companies have sold people on this idea that ads are somehow
| magically keeping the Internet free and and it would collapse
| otherwise, but if the trend continues and they all start
| charging anyway, then...
| wh0knows wrote:
| > I'm supposed to believe that the cost to Twitter to
| deliver ad-free and tracking-free text streams is higher
| than the cost for Netflix/Google to stream unlimited HD
| video to all of my devices on demand.
|
| The price is not based on the cost to provide the service,
| it's based on the current or potential revenue they can
| bring in via ads. A company won't switch revenue models if
| it means a 50% reduction in revenue.
| amanzi wrote:
| I don't understand why Meta and Twitter are charging a monthly
| fee for this. Surely, it's in their best interest to have as many
| verified users as possible on their respective platforms? Surely,
| they want to get to the point where there are so many verified
| people, that you don't trust anything that comes from a non-
| verified user? I understand there's a massive logistical
| challenge with verifying users across the globe, but there must
| be a better way than charging a non-trivial monthly fee for the
| "benefit" of being verified.
| blastonico wrote:
| I believe they have made some projections before charging for
| it. So, I assume that only a small amount is willing to pay for
| it.
|
| There can be an explosion in the first months, but most people
| will cancel the subscription when they realize how useless this
| thing is.
|
| I believe it tends to normalize in a curve not so distant from
| what we have today.
| college_physics wrote:
| $12 per month and user for a "social experience" that still
| tracks you and spams you is an insane amount.
|
| If you consider that amount x 1000 for a very modest open source
| fediverse instance hosting circa one thousand users, that is more
| than enough to sustain admins, moderators and spare change for
| some development.
|
| The economic model of social media never made any sense and its
| hard to see how it will sustain going forward.
| baby wrote:
| This definitely looks like it targets big pages and
| personalities. If that's true then that's really cheap no?
|
| If it targeted normal users like me (I pay for twitter blue, for
| example) then it would let me do things like:
|
| - set chronological newsfeed
|
| - see less or no ads
|
| That's it. That's enough to get me to pay
| Joeri wrote:
| Facebook gets about 50 billion usd / year of ad revenue in the
| U.S. for 226 million mau. That boils down to about $18 / month
| / user of ad revenue.
|
| Is it worth $20 / month to get no ads and a chronological feed?
| codq wrote:
| No ads or tracking across all Meta platforms/pixels? I'd say
| that's worth $20/month.
| iamleppert wrote:
| Imagine if Experian announced that you need to pay $11.99/mo to
| make your credit report secure and to stop your identity from
| being stolen and allow you to do something about it if it was.
| Sound familiar?
|
| The only thing that's going to stop every random company you have
| an account with from trying to extort a fee just to make sure an
| account is actually you is going to be regulation.
| ssnistfajen wrote:
| This is why I laugh when people here pretend that SV isn't also
| built upon copying, stealing, and cheating.
| jfengel wrote:
| I wonder if this information will be available to people using
| Facebook as single sign in.
|
| Many sites are happy to have free accounts but only one to a
| person. They want to avoid sock puppets and abuses like spam. If
| you had to pay even a tiny bit it would drastically cut down on
| it, but most users won't.
|
| If everyone had a pay for account somewhere that they could use
| elsewhere, others could piggyback off of it. (It might even be
| worth a small fee to Facebook, for a service they provide very
| cheaply.)
| dagorenouf wrote:
| Twitter iterates like a startup and Facebook steals what works
| like a big old company.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It's not like Twitter invented the concept of a paid
| subscription
| dagorenouf wrote:
| they invented the concept of paid verification for a major
| social platform and everybody dunked on them, now others copy
| them. Kind of like when Apple removes jack port - people dunk
| on them - then every competitor removes it too.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| They are several years late to this. I think had Facebook done
| this before smartphones took their Facebook Games marketshare and
| done perks for subscribers they could of really gotten a lot of
| subscribers. We are seeing as Apple cracks down on advertisers
| snooping more than they should that social media platforms will
| have to switch to subscription to supplement their income loss.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| This is huge - a product I have wanted for a long time.
|
| I assume/hope this will be available to third party sites so we
| can verify users.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Please say April 1st came a month and a half early.
|
| Although I do wonder if this is the opening salvo in sending
| "Facebook: it's free and always will be" the same way as Google's
| "don't be evil"...
| fatih-erikli wrote:
| Noone takes android seriously which is good.
| swarnie wrote:
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FhJheQDX0AEqKPw.jpg
|
| So it begins....
| marcopicentini wrote:
| Why should I pay to say the truth? It should be the bot to pay to
| convince for its lie
| bmitc wrote:
| It seems to be a common theme to charge for something you already
| provide. From taking away ports so you can charge for dongles,
| adding in ads so that you have to pay to take them away, to
| charging subscriptions for previously free services.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| In short: A subscription service that lets you verify your
| account with a government ID, for $11.99/month/web or
| $14.99/month on iOS. Support included.
|
| If this removed ads, added more controls on what you see and what
| is shared/sold to 3rd party, I'd actually consider it!
|
| But ads are not mentioned and ads are probably worth more than
| 12$/user/mo and.. this would probably help them track you
| "better".
| jefftk wrote:
| Facebook makes $43/y per user on average [1], but it's $69/y in
| Europe and $235/y in the US and Canada.
|
| And then there's the problem that the users most likely to pay
| are more valuable than average to advertise to.
|
| [1] Worldwide quarterly ARPU x4:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average...
| tmikaeld wrote:
| Even if it was 20$/mo (higher than top yearly average), I'd
| consider it if it became a privacy service and focus shifted
| from the users to the product.
| replicanteven wrote:
| The problem is that people who are willing to pay $20/mo
| for privacy are much more valuable to advertisers than
| those who can't.
|
| If those users go away, the average $/user from ads goes
| down, because the only people seeing ads are those who are
| too poor to avoid it.
|
| To an advertiser, poor people who direct their attention
| towards whatever is put in front of them are worth a lot
| less than rich people who carefully curate what their
| attention is directed towards. It's grody, but that's the
| advertising industry for you.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Right, someone willing to regularly pay $20/month is
| probably worth closer to $40/month to potential
| advertisers.
|
| It probably scales all the way up until $10k/month, which
| is near the upper limit of what super-luxury brands, that
| would buy ads online, can earn per customer.
|
| So the curious implication is that such services could be
| 'free' or $20k/month.
|
| But with a changing advertising market and lower budgets,
| FB might view the alignment of incentives more
| beneficial.
| DoctorOW wrote:
| Counterpoint, the main demographic for this already uses
| ad/tracker blockers. I'm sure Meta has some ways around
| that but getting that $20/month is much easier from a
| willing participant.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| That is definitely not true. Tech workers and people who
| are tech savvy use ad/tracker blockers, regardless of how
| good of an ad target they are. They are a very small
| slice of consumers with excess income.
|
| In other words, a lot of people who use ad blockers are
| good ad targets, but the converse is not true.
| dmix wrote:
| The lack of ad blockers on mobile is the real sweet spot.
| I pay for Youtube 100% to use it on mobile/ipad without
| ads. So even ad-blocking privacy people still see lots of
| ads if they use these apps.
| antiframe wrote:
| Mobile does not lack ad blockers. I use uBlock Origin on
| Firefox without any problem.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| >Mobile
|
| Interesting, firefox on my iphone mobile[0] does not
| allow this...
|
| [0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-ons-firefox-
| ios
| antiframe wrote:
| That's unfortunate. But saying that mobile lacks ad
| blockers is a bit disingenuous given that the largest
| mobile platform has a very good ad blocker.
|
| In a similar vein, the world does not lack ICE cars
| because a minority of them are electric.
| codq wrote:
| Yep, I'd consider paying more, even.
|
| There's a reason their products are so engaging and sticky
| --they're enjoyable to use!
|
| And they'd be significantly _more_ enjoyable if you didn 't
| have the Eye of Sauron watching you and trying to
| manipulate you at all times.
|
| I'd pay considerably for that.
| leodriesch wrote:
| I am wondering how this works out for YouTube with Premium. It
| removes ads and is 12EUR/mo.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| For $12 a month I'd get a blue badge?
| skilled wrote:
| Hahaha. This is actually hilarious. They won't budge to change
| and innovate so instead they copy and paste what Musk did on
| Twitter and just leave it at "fuck it".
| jmugan wrote:
| If they would turn off the advertisements and let me control my
| feed and notifications, it might pay. I'd be mad about it, but I
| might pay.
| dewey wrote:
| The problem with this is that people usually underestimate what
| they are worth to a company like Meta and "I'd be willing to
| pay 5 bucks for no ads" is usually not above the LTV/month
| threshold.
| [deleted]
| hackernewds wrote:
| how much would you pay?
| lordnacho wrote:
| Same as YouTube Premium.
|
| FB without ads would be great, and might change Meta's
| incentives going forward.
| 0xdada wrote:
| Not for me, personally. FB without ads still has no
| interesting content for me. YouTube premium is the best
| value for my money out of all my subscriptions due to
| content.
|
| On Facebook the network effect that made it cool in the
| beginning has now died and it will keep it from ever coming
| back for the same reasons it was great in the beginning.
| I'm very confident people I really care about will not
| start posting there, and they probably have the same
| thought process. It's just uncool.
| jmugan wrote:
| Not sure. I pay for GitHub just because I like it.
| morpheos137 wrote:
| "Free" and subsidised services online and in "Tech" e.g. uber are
| just the same old monopolistic tactic of "dumping" to get market
| share then jack up prices.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Does that mean that we can use fake names again? I mean, you can
| get "facebook verified" just by getting locked out of your
| account and having them demand photo ID to let you back in again.
| Facebook certainly force-verified me.
| timeon wrote:
| > Does that mean that we can use fake names again?
|
| I still have one.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Facebook lets you create 4 additional profiles with pseudonyms
| for users who don't want to use an account with their real
| name. Your main account still needs to use your real name, but
| you can just not use it.
|
| https://facebook.com/help/967154637433480
| kkthxbb wrote:
| I would've never said that that you will have to pay to have
| 12x12px icon next to your profile to confirm that you are really
| you.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Makes perfect sense, it's an easy way to generate revenue from
| everyone who earns money on Instagram. I wouldn't pay $12 each
| month for a blue checkmark, but for nearly everyone who profits
| from sponsorships or who advertises their business it's a cheap
| way to get a bit of extra clout.
| gkoberger wrote:
| I don't want to sound like I'm defending Meta, but at least
| there's _something_ behind this verification.
|
| On Twitter, there's just so many face-less spam troll accounts
| that are verified, and all a blue check means is that the person
| likes Elon enough to give him $8. At least Facebook requires a
| government ID, and the verification confirms that the person is
| who they say they are.
|
| (I do think if they really cared, especially in the face of
| looming AI advancements, this would be free. This only really
| works if most real people are verified, otherwise there's nothing
| suspicious about a non-verified account.)
| grepfru_it wrote:
| >At least Facebook requires a government ID, and the
| verification confirms that the person is who they say they are.
|
| I photoshopped my dad's driver's license 25 years ago. I used
| it to successfully confirm to a website that I was over 18. I'm
| pretty sure that method is still viable today
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > At least Facebook requires a government ID, and the
| verification confirms that the person is who they say they are.
|
| But Facebook has already required this for years to run
| advertisements. So they're now charging for the thing that they
| were previously doing for everyone for free, making the site
| less safe and secure.
| CraigRood wrote:
| Real-Verified is the next logical step. Twitter will being
| following suit very soon. That said, how does this add value to
| Meta? Isn't this just another indication that Meta through its
| products sees less value in actual relationships and more in
| algo-driven timelines? Snap seems to be the only social network
| left that is personal.
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| Who here is part of the, " deleted my Facebook" club?
|
| _Raises hand_
| jawns wrote:
| It's strange for ID verification to be presented as a
| subscription offering, given that it should suffice to verify it
| once (or for relatively long periods).
|
| Obviously, Meta is after that sweet sweet MRR. But the consumer
| should recognize that they're paying for a one-time or infrequent
| task as if it involves ongoing effort.
|
| From the consumer standpoint, a one-time fee makes much more
| sense.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| That's probably why they baked in "support" into the offer.
|
| Maybe the logic with paying goes that, if you loose access to
| the account for any reason - you can just stop paying and it
| will no longer be verified.
| anonylizard wrote:
| I think pay-for-verification is going to be dominant on all real-
| identity social media.
|
| Reason is simple: AI
|
| 1.You can now trivially create an avatar photo, of any level of
| attractiveness, of any race, of any age. You can even reproduce
| the same character reliably in different environments/costumes
| via stable diffusion + LORA. 2. You can now easily create a
| comment history on that account, thanks to ChatGPT. 3. You can
| even produce voices reliably with just a few samples.
|
| There's no real defense against AI impersonation at scale, except
| for charging-for-verification. The money drastically increases
| the cost for impersonators and scammers/catfishers, and provides
| resources on the other end to moderate impersonation.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Who cares? Is the AI gonna RSVP to my event? Haggle over my 2nd
| hand item? Comment on whatever the local council has planned?
| All these schemes tend to fall apart at the first contact with
| reality.
|
| (Also, you are talking about "Facebook verifying users". They
| can't even verify who is paying them for political ads, and
| they certainly don't seem to care very much.)
| urbandw311er wrote:
| I think it's still a relevant problem we will face as a
| society with regards to bot farms etc running social
| interference (eg election propaganda)
| notahacker wrote:
| I think the pay-for-verification might solve those problems
| ship sailed when Twitter decided that a symbol which had
| previously meant they'd attempted verification could be given
| to pretty much anyone who paid them $8 a month...
|
| Impersonation-at-scale depends on scale, not verification of
| individual accounts as authentic people with authentic
| notability and opinions, and impersonation not at scale
| sometimes feels more motivated to pay the $8 than the person or
| position being impersonated.
| halJordan wrote:
| I get the "i hate Twitter/elon" attitude, but the truth is
| that the CA system has been dependent on pay-to-verify for
| some time now and despite whatever grievances you have
| against verisign or whoever it's brought us to today safely
| enough.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| And the problem with pay for identity is you can buy other
| people's identities. The news was full impersonations right
| after Twitter initiated it's pay for blue check marks. That
| we don't here about it now may just be a matter that the
| news stopped caring. URL squatting was a problem for a long
| time - the decision that trademark holder could seize
| domains helped but a web address today isn't considered a
| solid identity at this point so "the system working" is a
| bit of an exaggeration.
|
| Also, I'd note the gp didn't bad-mouth Elon or Verisign so
| your comment is a kind of riding a trolly false accusation.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| It helps because the cost of impersonating wont make sense
| for a lot of people
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| Once/if consumers value identity this might change.
|
| If everyone on twitter were paying for verification, I think
| twitter would be much more interested in defending the
| sanctity of said system.
|
| As it stands, they are currently just trying to get the
| feature out there and get people to pay. Getting it deployed
| trumps making it perfect.
| notahacker wrote:
| They already had a verification feature deployed which
| wasn't perfect but was reasonably strict. Then they debased
| it for a new revenue stream.
|
| I don't see them making the _now that we 've got a bunch of
| people paying for it, lets reduce our revenue by suddenly
| becoming strict on it again_ decision. Or people taking the
| badge _more_ seriously now it just means someone subscribed
| to Twitter Blue
| benced wrote:
| Elon turning a $8 subscription into a culture war artifact
| doesn't invalidate the idea of a subscribing for legitimacy
| altogether.
| notahacker wrote:
| Agreed it doesn't completely invalidate it as a concept,
| but Elon turning the highest profile _somewhat_ reliable
| implementation of an authenticity badge into a culture war
| artifact doesn 't exactly bode well for it being a social
| media must-pay-for. The fact Facebook once aspired to be
| the platform where everyone used their real name and now
| can't be bothered to deactivate friendspamming sexbots
| without most users caring suggests that ordinary people
| won't exactly be queueing up to pay them $144 per annum
| because of their inherent trustworthiness as a verifier
| either.
|
| It'd probably work a bit on LinkedIn because of the nature
| of the user base and lots of people already expensing
| Premium accounts, but funnily enough I'm not sure LinkedIn
| actually has that much of a fake account problem...
| pessimizer wrote:
| > a symbol which had previously meant they'd attempted
| verification
|
| That's not what it meant. It was an award for being notable.
| $8 is a fee that you pay to get verified.
| notahacker wrote:
| It was an award for being an _authentic_ notable person or
| entity, on the basis that the notable people and entities
| were most likely to be parodied or faked. Now it 's an
| award for people that pay up
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Sending a photoshopped ID to Facebook to get the verified badge
| on your fake account is orders of magnitude easier than
| everything you mention here.
|
| Those verifications are 100% useless for non public figures.
| linuxftw wrote:
| Or, you know, we can just go back to circa 2000 and tell people
| not to trust everything they see on the internet as fact?
| woeirua wrote:
| Propaganda works. Even when people know it's probably fake.
| shapefrog wrote:
| > I think pay-for-verification is going to be dominant on all
| real-identity social media.
|
| Bad actors are going to be happy to pay $10/20/30/40 a month to
| scam people, its their job and livelihood.
| verisimi wrote:
| You're going to be tracked and traced everywhere, and you're
| going to pay for the privilege.
|
| Amazing what they can get us to do!
|
| This is the reason musk bought twitter too, of course.
| conceptme wrote:
| It's kinda weird that it used to be a platform for people that
| you know in real life, that's no longer the case and nothing has
| taken It's place.
| generated wrote:
| I would pay a token amount to only show my friends' updates,
| all my friends updates, in reverse chronological order.
| likeabbas wrote:
| BeReal is pretty nice for this tbh. Snapchat Stories used to
| be nice but IG killed that and then Snapchat had to find
| other niches
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| Use the F.B.Purity browser extension.
| arkitaip wrote:
| Tons of people use Whatsapp, Imo and other chat to keep in
| touch with friends and families without the nonsense of social
| media.
| ffssffss wrote:
| It's more about connections to acquaintances and mutual
| friends... maybe you just had to be there in ~2009 but
| there's really nothing like it today. For better or worse.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Yes, chronological timeline and push! And that only1 for
| people in the group.
|
| 1) Yes, yes, Facebook/Meta hassome access and security issues
| might exist etc., but way different from public-by-default
| Facebook
| wussboy wrote:
| > people that you know in real life
|
| There's still, you know, real life. I recommend it.
| bobbygoodlatte wrote:
| Yep. A very sad truth.
|
| It would be quite a challenge to re-create what FB circa
| 2006-2010 or so was like. Before influencers and engagement
| farming. Before it became "social media" and was just a "social
| utility"
|
| The problem is that even if you re-built that product, it would
| quickly get overrun by engagement optimizers. If the product is
| open, they'll rush in.
|
| Group chat apps somewhat fill this product void, but not
| completely. There was something magical about a social network
| being somewhat open & organic that group chats can't capture
| frankthedog wrote:
| The group chat is the new social network. Chronological, you
| know who's in there, photo sharing, reactions, reply's. It has
| everything me and my close friends need.
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| Love or hate Elon, he could definitely have an impact on the tech
| industry.
|
| In a few months he could demonstrate that you don't need as many
| employees as you thought, that you don't need the heavy handed
| moderation/censorship, and that you could actually charge for
| your services rather than being wholly dependent on advertising.
|
| All positive developments for the industry IMO.
| DeepYogurt wrote:
| That or he kills the company
| grecy wrote:
| Absolutely right, that is a possible outcome.
|
| Personally, I'd rather try something and have it not work out
| and learn the lessons than sit around saying "what if" for
| the rest of my life.
| lukevp wrote:
| With 40 billion dollars on the line? I think it'd make more
| sense to think through things and evolve it over time
| rather than shooting from the hip constantly. Morale at
| Twitter must be even lower than Amazon at this point.
| grecy wrote:
| > _With 40 billion dollars on the line?_
|
| Well sure. Musk risked a lot more than that and almost
| lost Tesla on the Model3 ramp. He risked a lot more than
| that on reusable rockets, he's risking a lot more than
| that on Starlink & Starship.
|
| If you want to do something extremely impactful, you've
| gotta take big risks.
|
| Playing the safe game is pretty mundane and boring, and
| to be honest it's not a very exciting way to live, and
| not a very fast way to improve something.
| latchkey wrote:
| > _Morale at Twitter must be even lower than Amazon at
| this point._
|
| Why would you say that though? The people who've hung on
| this long probably want to be there.
|
| https://twitter.com/leahculver/status/1625961159894663169
| rvnx wrote:
| Then it's very strange that they created the #oneteam
| with blue hearts if they are so happy ?
| tayo42 wrote:
| There's probably some pyschopaths that enjoy the chaos
| and power vacuums.
|
| There are a lot that don't want to be there. A lot
| returned out of necessity. Mostly from h1b visa stuff and
| avoiding being deported. Or getting a new job isn't as
| easy right now as some think it is. Teams are tiny so
| people are over worked and elon is making demands that
| require people to over work and do things immediately.
| maximus-decimus wrote:
| The company was already bleeding money. He might fail to save
| it, but can he really kill a company that was already dying?
| mmiyer wrote:
| Twitter had many profitable quarters before Musk bought it,
| and lots of cash on hand with a lot of runway. It was not
| dying in any meaningful sense. His changes have only
| destroyed profitability by substantially reducing
| advertising revenue.
| beebmam wrote:
| Yes, yes he can.
| anonymousab wrote:
| The company had some profitable years pre-covid, and Elon's
| first action was to nearly double their debt _and_ slash
| their income.
|
| He may have done far worse things as well but that depends
| on your opinion of his product/feature changes. But the
| additional debt he has saddled them with and the revenue he
| deprived Twitter of aren't really arguable, and his
| attempts to cut costs by short term slash and burns don't
| make anywhere near the dent needed to offset them.
| LightDub wrote:
| Huh. New perspective.
|
| I don't like Musk but is this a mercy killing?
| dehrmann wrote:
| At worst, it was treading water.
| mc32 wrote:
| I think Elon started the 'disk defragmentation' process for
| employee efficiency and other companies are seeing the benefit.
| There is a lot of slack in tech companies. When staff have time
| to unironically have video shorts on how pampered they are and
| how little work they get to do, there is a lot of
| 'defragmentation' opportunities.
|
| Companies were afraid to be first but Elon plus the new malaise
| economy gives them the right condition to follow suit and start
| it.
| 6510 wrote:
| The most unexpected angle to me was how people who just do
| their job become the prime targets to get rid of. If you want
| promotion or simply for people to stop laughing at you behind
| your back you have to drop your productivity way way down to
| average - ideally below.
| hendersoon wrote:
| Certainly all that /could/ happen, but given developments so
| far it all seems just a bit far-fetched, doesn't it?
| fma wrote:
| FB was losing money due to Apple clamping down on privacy
| policy. It should not surprise anyone that FB would look for
| different revenue stream. IMHO FB had no choice, and I wouldn't
| be surprised if their introduce other paid products.
|
| I wish FB would have a free verification service so everyone
| can be verified...so when I look through comments I can filter
| by such.
| LightDub wrote:
| [flagged]
| trashtestcrash wrote:
| I think it's way to early to state these conclusions.
| penjelly wrote:
| he's not the first to even do this... Snapchat added a premium
| tier with actual (small) perks way ahead of others, and they
| have 2.5M subs for it. telegram did it too. People only focus
| on musk cause he's loud but he's following the trends of the
| industry, he's not inventing the ideas from thin air. Remember
| when he said he'd make twitter a "super app"? kinda like how
| IG, wechat, Snapchat and others have been for a while.
| soneca wrote:
| Too early to tell any of those things. The layoffs on sales
| might make the business worse in the mid term. The layoffs on
| product and engineering might make the product worse, even
| obsolete in the mid term. There is absolutely no way to tell if
| light handed moderation will work. There is no way to know if
| the service revenue makes any difference compared to ad
| revenue.
|
| You are wishful thinking the best case scenario for Musk
| decisions. It is just as likely, in my opinion, that in a year
| or two the worst scenario will be the outcome of Musk tenure.
|
| The worst case scenario, in my view, is something like the
| revenue never recovering to pre-acquisition levels (which
| weren't great already), the product not having any
| significantly valuable new feature, and suffering from long
| outages and ended up being sold for ~$10bi.
| blastonico wrote:
| Overstaffing a company doesn't mean it makes great products
| too, it tends to create more bureaucracy, deep hierarchy
| structure, and pointless products (some companies putting
| more effort on these products then focusing on their best
| ones...).
|
| It's extremely difficult to find the right balance, almost
| impossible when the company is sky rocketing, like Twitter
| was.
|
| Trying to analyze it from a business man perspective, I see
| that Elon's trying to find that balance and I see that as
| positive. He can be wrong, things can go wrong, but sometimes
| you must make this kind of decision, take the consequences,
| and adjust to fix what you broke.
| chasing wrote:
| He may very well prove that you can make a social media service
| more profitable by making it more harmful to users and damaging
| to the community in general.
|
| I'm not sure selling sausages made out of sawdust is a big win
| or even that interesting of a business solution. It's a short-
| cut that most companies could take if they were to chuck their
| ethics out of the window (and possibly be willing to break the
| law).
|
| But if it makes money a large swath of the tech industry will
| hail it as an innovation and follow suit. Which is kind of sad.
| And also, at the end of the day, why we need laws against
| selling sausages made out of sawdust.
| [deleted]
| tokinonagare wrote:
| > He may very well prove that you can make a social media
| service more profitable by making it more harmful to users
| and damaging to the community in general.
|
| By removing the very politically-biased censorship he already
| did a very healthy move for the whole world.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| I'm sure dumping millions of users suddenly into the
| equivalent of /b/ will be a politically neutral change. /s
|
| Unfortunately it isn't possible to have an unmoderated
| forum. Choosing not to moderate is still a moderation
| choice.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _By removing the very politically-biased censorship..._
|
| About that...123
|
| 1 https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/25/23571103/elon-musk-
| twitte...
|
| 2 https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/16/tech/musk-censors-
| press/index...
|
| 3 https://theintercept.com/2022/11/22/elon-musk-twitter-
| censor...
| mc32 wrote:
| He did but we see both the liberal and autocratic
| governments of the world lament that they wish Elon would
| be open to government censorship. Now, some people don't
| want to have this be acknowledged but it's what we're
| seeing.
| drstewart wrote:
| People are actually going to start arguing that Twitter and
| other social media were healthy up until he bought Twitter
| just to spite bad meme man, aren't they?
| chasing wrote:
| Just because something's a mess doesn't mean you can't make
| it worse.
| curiousgal wrote:
| This is satire, right?
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| No. As I mentioned, leaving your feelings about him
| personally aside, he is challenging the model for social
| media and now having the approach cloned by the market
| leader.
|
| I hated the moderations/censorship on these platforms and I
| dislike the adtech/tracking business model so he has my
| support on both of those angles.
|
| Meta also appear to be bundling in customer support which is
| probably my third objection to big tech. So I'll thank Elon
| for that one too.
| anonymousab wrote:
| What he has demonstrated so far is that you don't need
| those things if your goal is to lose money, and you can
| stay alive a little longer in those situations by simply
| ignoring several laws wholesale.
|
| He still has yet to demonstrate any other outcomes than
| making twitter vastly less profitable.
| ripvanwinkle wrote:
| The ad tracking is not going away with this new offer
| thfuran wrote:
| Yeah, there's too much money to be made. It's unlikely to
| go away unless made entirely illegal.
| smrtinsert wrote:
| The model includes ignoring real estate contracts? He's
| having an impact like someone dumping a trash bin on your
| lawn has an impact
| [deleted]
| kristianc wrote:
| Or ... none of those could end up being true. I remember a lot
| of projection about how Elon was going to restore Twitter to
| the 'early days', and none of that has come to pass either.
|
| I'd rather judge on things that have actually happened than
| have to deal with a new set of forward looking projections
| about what could happen every few months.
| soneca wrote:
| I remember having a bit of hope that an easy win could be he
| making changes to regain trust from developers and make
| Twitter a more dynamic platform with a more open API. Turns
| out, he did exactly the opposite and led to even more
| distrust from third party developers.
| pessimizer wrote:
| It adds nothing to reply to someone saying that the changes
| at twitter could be good and influential by saying "but they
| could also be bad." It's already implied in the _could._
|
| > I'd rather judge on things that have actually happened than
| have to deal with a new set of forward looking projections
| about what could happen every few months.
|
| If you're leaving all prediction and forecasting to other
| people, why complain when they do it?
| kristianc wrote:
| I'm not pointing out that they could be bad -- I'm pointing
| out that there's a good track record of them not happening
| at all, particularly when it comes to Musk.
| shrimpx wrote:
| I read that ~300k users have signed up for Twitter Blue, so
| Twitter Blue has increased Twitter's revenue by 0.5%.
|
| He's definitely made a bunch of contrarian decisions but it's
| too early to speculate that they could be 'impact'.
|
| Buying a company and immediately forcing it to operate on a
| fraction of its prior resources is not new, btw. It's the
| private equity formula.
| Spastche wrote:
| seems like needless rent-seeking for a dying company
| meepmorp wrote:
| the rent seeking is a way to keep the place going, ad revenue
| is down and they're still shoveling money into the metaverse
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Honestly, all of this "pay for a verified badge" BS from Twitter,
| now FB and others seems exactly equivalent to when companies
| release software with vulnerabilities and then also charge you
| for the antivirus software to protect against that (thankfully,
| that seems to be less of an issue these days).
|
| Why don't these companies have a responsibility to prevent
| fraudulent signups in the first place - especially Facebook which
| has, from day #1, prevented non-real-person signups in their Ts-
| and-Cs.
| westoque wrote:
| i actually support the pay to verify feature. my reasoning for
| this is it gives authenticity to the user. if the user is
| verified then i know that the user is most likely not a bot
| account and gives some credibility. could this be free?
| certainly, it's how the old twitter verified works but now
| since all users can be verified, it democratizes this feature
| and i think its better overall. i notced discussions with
| similarly verified users are more civilized probably due to the
| personal information being shared and makes them think twice
| about doing anything malicious or otherwise.
| basch wrote:
| Or like Microsoft making conditional access a premium and not
| base feature of identity.
|
| "We can see hackers are in your account, enter your credit card
| and upgrade now so we can boot them for you."
| dm8 wrote:
| As someone who likes to pay for things I use, I'm in the target
| customer/user group here. Couple of questions -
|
| 1. Is it only for FB or across all Meta services (FB, IG,
| WhatsApp, Oculus etc.) 2. Are ads going to be shown to
| verified/premium subscribers?
|
| 2nd point is particularly important. Especially if key value prop
| is about security and privacy. Looks like ARPU for Meta is $40
| annually. So financially they can afford not to show ads to
| verified subscribers (annual sub of $100+). However, for verified
| subscribers it's only about "blue badge" I doubt there will be
| huge uptick unless it has other "sweetners" like "no ads" like
| youtube premium.
|
| Overall - this is a great move by Meta. As it gives them ability
| to diversify revenue streams from ads where they are dependent on
| 3rd party platform privacy policies. YouTube premium has shown
| that social platforms can thrive with freemium model and they
| have roughly 80M subs ($1B+ revenue). Meta is trying to replicate
| same success with their brands.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| The type of person that can afford $144/year is going to have
| much higher ARPU than the overall average.
| codq wrote:
| YouTube Premium has a clear value prop though w/no ads--I'm
| still not sure what I'm getting for Meta Verified... a blue
| check? Direct support if I (probably won't) need it?
|
| Twitter Blue now allows for longer tweets, and there is (or at
| least was) cachet around having a checkmark, so there is some
| cultural heritage there.
|
| Blue checks on Instagram have some clout, but I've never heard
| of someone eager for verification on Facebook. Protecting
| against impersonation is something these platforms should be
| doing for free.
|
| If this removed ads across the platforms then _maybe_ there'd
| be value in this, but I really just don't understand who this
| is for or why anyone would pay $100+ /year.
| redox99 wrote:
| $12 is too high if it's not going to remove ads.
| markx2 wrote:
| "Good morning and new product announcement: this week we're
| starting to roll out Meta Verified -- a subscription service that
| lets you verify your account with a government ID, get a blue
| badge, get extra impersonation protection against accounts
| claiming to be you, and get direct access to customer support.
| This new feature is about increasing authenticity and security
| across our services. Meta Verified starts at $11.99 / month on
| web or $14.99 / month on iOS. We'll be rolling out in Australia
| and New Zealand this week and more countries soon."
| HeckFeck wrote:
| "Nothing sinister to see here, move along!"
|
| t. Nick Clegg
| swarnie wrote:
| Nice to see the Tea Boy still getting work.
| jfk13 wrote:
| $12 a _month_ , or nearly $150 a year?! Wow... how much
| "customer support" do they expect the average person to need in
| the course of a year?
| spike021 wrote:
| I've known people with several thousand followers whose
| accounts get stolen ("hacked") and then they have no way to
| get Instagram to restore their access, so they're forced to
| make a new account.
|
| I guess it'd be helpful for people like them to have
| dedicated support lines.
| bink wrote:
| Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper just to enable MFA?
| jefftk wrote:
| People who pay for customer support probably expect to
| consume more than average.
| codq wrote:
| I'd call them every day just to chat.
| mattm wrote:
| This would be worth paying for one month just to get access
| to customer support if I needed it.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| What makes this more ridiculous is that some of us have already
| been forced to verify with a government ID years ago, and they
| did that for free.
|
| (I think it's if you run a page with over a certain number of
| followers or something)
| mrtqaf wrote:
| Hilarious. You pay for the fact that they can track you better,
| build real life dossiers and charge advertisers more.
|
| Sometime ago it was "if it's free, you are the product". Let's
| change that to "you are always the product".
| baby wrote:
| People who say that usually don't find facebook useful.
| Imagine saying that about google maps, gmail, spreadsheet,
| google docs, google meet, etc.
| yazzku wrote:
| People who say that don't want their identities
| prostituted. Whether or how useful it is is irrelevant. I
| don't want to have my identity prostituted based on the
| degree of how much I get in return.
| yazzku wrote:
| Now the product literally pays for itself. It's like the wall
| in Mexico, Silicon Valley style.
| winternett wrote:
| Seems to be a lazy clone of Musk policy from Twitter... Isn't
| it crazy that now private companies (not even in conjunction
| with governments that issue IDs) are selling online legitimacy?
|
| These moves are driven by ignorant (outright) class-ism, and
| social media is quickly becoming a system of fraud that
| supports the wealthy while disabling people who don't pay. It's
| going to corrupt every aspect of life from news to
| entertainment if it hasn't already.... Trending topics used to
| be somewhat accurate because they were based on everyone's
| posts rather than just the posts of people who could afford to
| pay for verification. Because platforms got greedy and couldn't
| make platforms work with corporate sponsoring advertiser
| funding alone, they turn on users, the very people already
| working for free... This is not sustainable business. These
| platforms create schemes like crypto and NFT scams, info
| harvesting, unfair moderation, user account lockout extortion
| schemes, fake followers, payola promotion, ban extortion,
| industry plants, and many other criminal things to extort their
| user base. It's the modern day large-scale criminal enterprise
| to run a social media site.... The reason it's not obvious is
| because no one sees the code at work, they just see the end
| result of content creators.
|
| This is really short-sighted (stupid actually) tech leadership
| based on profit desperation. I hope people begin to defund
| these large social media entities, as they are no good for
| anyone's progress, except for the company CEOs and Investors
| perhaps... Ugh.
| dopa42365 wrote:
| If for whatever reason you absolutely NEED a different account
| than everyone else (very special VIP person), you might as well
| pay for it.
| epaulson wrote:
| Every time I see these pay-for-verification schemes I can't help
| but think of Dr. Seuss and the Star-Bellied Sneetches:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VohyMXB4FLo
|
| I must not be the target audience for this because I can't see
| how paying nearly as much as Amazon Prime is worth it so I can
| get comment priority and a little star next to my FB account,
| which is friends-only anyway. If they threw something useful in,
| like a music or video streaming service with a decent catalog or
| airline miles or a discount at Target, then maybe.
| jvm___ wrote:
| I think it's a response to the incoming AI revolution.
|
| Just because someone writes in your name and your style online
| won't mean it's you when ChatGPT or the next version can clone
| your writing style in seconds.
|
| Being verified online is going to be more important for
| businesses and people as the internet degrades into the quality
| level of recipe sites.
| jjfoooo4 wrote:
| Sounds like Facebook's problem, not mine.
| rvz wrote:
| > Being verified online is going to be more important for
| businesses and people as the internet degrades into the
| quality level of recipe sites.
|
| Now someone is thinking and making sense. But I don't think
| this current AI cycle is anything of a 'revolution'. It is
| more like a pure hype and mania driven reaction over a
| hallucinating AI generating sophistry.
|
| There is no breakthrough in this other than 'train it on more
| data and watch it go off the rails' like what we have seen
| with Bing AI. This is just Tay 2.0.
| anony23 wrote:
| I wouldn't even create a Meta account if they paid ME 11.99/month
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| The key feature seems to be access to customer support. If you
| have a large audience or following on Facebook and it's relevant
| to your business then I could probably see it being worthwhile.
| For regular users the value proposition seems questionable?
|
| I'd probably be more fine with a one-time fixed-cost verification
| service, considering it probably requires a human to manually
| verify and approve each request. But a monthly subscription? That
| feels like a rent-seeking cash grab. Do you suddenly forget about
| someone's verification status as soon as they stop paying?
|
| If anyone reading this comment is considering paying for this
| service I'd love to hear what makes this service worthwhile for
| you.
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