“It’s free and always will be” (in Italian: “It’s free, and it will always be”): anyone who has been a Facebook member for some time will probably remember this writing, which appeared on the homepage before logging in or registering. The site arrived in Italy in mid-2008 and that phrase has been there for over a decademore or less until 2019.
It hasn’t been the case for a long time, and now the login page simply says “Facebook helps you connect and stay in touch with the people in your life.” Free or paying, it is not specified. And it is right that this is the case, because Meta (the company that controls the blue social network) has been imagining possible for some time now paid functionality precisely for Facebook, as well as for Instagram and WhatsApp.
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According to rumors, the company would even have set up a dedicated team for the development of these new products: the idea is to recover the decline in revenue due to the contraction in advertising but also to the use of resources to fuel the bet of the metaverse. Meta is not alone in taking this path: other technology companies, which historically have always granted all their products for free, are changing direction. IS the case of Twitter, which is testing the Edit button for its Blue version. Which is paid.
In accordance to anticipated by the colleagues of The Vergewho viewed an internal document sent to employees last week, Meta’s new division will be called New Monetization Experiences and will be led by Pratiti Raychoudhury, previously Head of Research: “We see opportunities on new products, features and experiences that people would be willing to pay for”Confirmed John Hegeman, Meta’s vice president for the Monetization sector.
It is not yet clear which products are being talked about, but the company imagines “a time horizon of 5 years to make a difference”. Translated, it means that we will hardly see substantial changes before 2028.
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Meta’s revenues, like those of its competitors, come almost entirely from advertising: they have been affected by a global contraction in the sector, but also by modified by Apple with the App Tracking Transparency feature, which gives people the option of not providing detailed information to advertisers. Last July, the company experienced its first ever drop in revenue, so much so that it warned employees to expect an “economically difficult” second half of the year. Not only that: Meta is also investing and spending a lot for the development of his metaverse and the devices connected to it, such as new viewers.
It must be said that the company had somehow already moved in this direction: right up Facebookgroup administrators can charge for access to exclusive content; WhatsApp charges some companies for the ability to send messages to customers; Instagram recently announced that creators could start activating subscriptions for access to exclusive content.
Speaking with The Verge, Hegeman admitted that “obviously we are paying attention to what is happening in the industry ”and that“ I think there are several companies that have done interesting things that I hope we can learn and emulate over time ”. As mentioned, Meta is not the only technological platform to push towards paid features: TikTok began testing paid subscriptions for creators earlier this year, Twitter it has activated payments for the Super Follows function with subscription content and has the aforementioned Blue service; is Telegram is Snapchat require payment to unlock additional features.