Düsseldorf The new service from the Internet company Meta, with which users of Facebook and Instagram will be able to verify themselves in the future, costs up to 15 dollars a month. There is a “blue badge, special protection against identity theft” and “direct access to customer service”, according to founder Mark Zuckerberg announced a few days ago on Instagram.
The offer will be tested in Australia and New Zealand first, with later expansion to other countries. It is unclear whether it will also come to Germany. Meta Germany did not want to comment further on request.
With the new service, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram is joining a number of other social network operators that offer payment options. Since last year, Snap has had Snapchat Plus for around four dollars a month, which enables “exclusive offers” for users such as the use of certain emojis.
Elon Musk thinks payment option is “inevitable”
Twitter recently launched the premium subscription “Twitter Blue” in Germany for eight euros a month. There are fewer ads and tweets are placed more prominently. Twitter boss Elon Musk commented on Meta’s move as “inevitable”.
At first glance it seems so. However, there are significant differences. Twitter is an “asymmetric system,” as experts put it. There, users want to reach as many readers as possible who are unknown to them.
Facebook and Instagram, on the other hand, are “symmetrical systems”: Friends and acquaintances are more likely to network there. Accordingly, verification makes less sense. “This is achieved almost by itself through the connection between the users,” says Sonja Utz, communications expert at the University of Tübingen. “So I’m rather skeptical that so many will accept the offer.”
Facebook is changing towards Tiktok
Snap was also very skeptical. Around eight months after the launch of Snapchat Plus, there are still two million paying customers. Compared to the total number of 750 million users, however, acceptance is still low.
The reasons for introducing a payment option are easy to understand. A stable stream of income beckons and more independence from the currently fluctuating online advertising business. So far, Meta, Snap or Twitter sales have depended almost exclusively on ads. With the economic downturn, however, this leveled off.
In addition, Apple introduced new data protection rules in the iPhone operating system iOS in 2021, which make it difficult to place advertising – and cost Meta, for example, ten billion dollars in sales every year.
The group also has problems with growth. Facebook and Instagram are becoming victims of their own success, they are slowly getting on in years. A few weeks ago, Meta reported a total of 2.96 billion users worldwide, little more than a year ago.
Tiktok also causes big problems with its fast videos. To face the competition, Meta isn’t just pushing its 15-second videos reels. It also changes its algorithm, which, unlike in the past, no longer puts the entries of friends or acquaintances in the foreground as much. As with Tiktok, users should be recommended content that might interest them.
This will change the character of Facebook and Instagram, away from the social network and towards asymmetric systems like Twitter and Tiktok. Verification would make more sense there.
More: The thing has a blue tick – Facebook and Instagram want money from users
