Paying for Facebook and Instagram
It seems to be a fair playbook: if you hate adverts, please pay for subscriptions. Hope the Europeans will use their money to stop seeing ads. What Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, plans to do, makes sense.
European users of Facebook and Instagram may soon be able to pay for ad-free access to the social media platforms, The New York Times writes, citing anonymous sources. Meta is reportedly weighing whether offering paid plans would help alleviate mounting privacy concerns from the EU over data tracking, a practice that underpins the company's digital advertising business. The addition of a paid tier would be a first for Meta and "one of the most tangible examples to date of how companies are having to redesign products" in response to regulators, the Times notes. Meta has faced several costly fines in Europe for privacy-related violations, including a $1.3 billion penalty levied in May for sending user information to the U.S.