this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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Awful to see our personal privacy and social lives being ransomed like this. €10 seems like a price gouge for a social media site, and I'm even seeing a price tag of 150SEK (~€15) In Sweden.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Price is a thing, but having the option to chose is definitely good.

Now comes the real question: do you really trust the Zuck to implement a "do not share/sell anything" policy ? 'Cause yeah, if I'm paying, I'm expecting that none of my data is being sold/processed/transmitted to another company. Paying to just remove ads is .. pointless.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

I mean I would argue that the important choice - not use FB/Instagram at all - isn't an option for most people. People's lives depend on this software, a lot of people would have a really hard time connecting with friends or participating in community organizations without access to Meta's locked-in user base.

This is why the option to pay for your own privacy rights is a false choice, and why these gatekeepers need stricter regulation from the EU. These companies make billions in profits from their monopoly positions and privacy rights abuses.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

the fact I don't trust this lizardman any farther than I could toss him is the reason I took it as an opportunity to say goodbye to anything Meta-related.

I haven't trust him and his "company" before, I won't start with it now and throw money at him

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

100% this. I'd argue though, that the price point is fair. In 2018, Facebook earned an average of roughly $110 in ad revenue per American user according to this article.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The price might be fair for american users. The average european user makes Facebook about $60 per year. Sorce: https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average-revenue-per-user-by-region/

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

They'll sell your data up until you pay, right? So if I've had an account for 15 years, and then start paying, my 15 years of data is still at their disposal.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is a classic. Make the price high enough that nobody wants to pay it, but low enough that law enforcement doesn't complain. Everybody will click on the „I'm Ok with tracking“ button.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago (1 children)

And for those who pay, they will still probably sell their data to advertisers and hike the prices in 2-3 years.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

They don't sell the data. It is used by Facebook to identify you and your interests and advertisers then pay Facebook to use this information to target their desired audiences with relevant ads. The data stays with Facebook. It's misleading to to say that they're selling your data because that's not exactly what's happening. Advertiser has no use for the user data itself. Advertising platforms do.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

erm...Cambridge Analytica?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They don't sell the data, they sell access to the data and some other things they calculated from it. That's just semantics at this point.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I don't think it's just semantics, when many people literally think they're handing over your data to a third party, when that is not actually the case. That would be significantly more concerning than what they're doing now, which already is concerning enough.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Suddenly Lemmy hosting costs seem really low...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Lemmy isn’t a social network like Facebook though

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Yeah, we don't need to support greedy capitalists, and also all the extra stuff that comes with being an actual company.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

But pixelfed is a social network like Instagram

[–] [email protected] 34 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Social media ≠ social lives.

People need to remember this and not give their social lives to private companies.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Most of society doesn't realize this yet, sadly.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago

In the case of Facebook, the average value of an active user’s data to Facebook is about $2 per months.

They shouldn't be allowed to charge more than that.

Source

[–] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The wording in the message was also “we won’t use your data for ads” - which I understood as that they will still track it…

[–] cosmicrookie 7 points 10 months ago

They sure will! They basically just removed untargeted ads and replaced it with addfree subscription. Major loss for users

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Instead of paying 10€/month for a desktop subscribtion you can also just use adblocker which does the exact same thing.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

An ad blocker doesn't prevent FB and Instagram internal tracking and usage of personal data, and they don't work on the phone app.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Neither does the subscribtion

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Fair enough.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Is it a good news for alternative social media ?

I mean now that people have to pay to use facebook, wouldn't they move to the fedi ?

Also do we want the racist uncle and the boomer memes on the fedi ?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You can still choose to use the "free" version where you have to accept all the cookies, trackers and I don't know what else.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

True, that part never changed. I'm not using any Facebook social networks, so it doesn't affect me. But adding more options doesn't seem like a bad thing to me, even though the price seems pretty steep.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Shit thing for me, I use it to reach guests and make announcements for the restaurant. Sucks but that's where most people still get local information.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Facebook and Instagram users in the European Union will be charged up to €12.99 a month for ad-free versions of the social networks as a way to comply with the bloc’s data privacy rules, parent company Meta said on Monday.

The higher prices reflect commissions charged by the Apple and Google app stores on in-app payments, the company said in a blogpost.

The company’s main way of making money is to tailor ads for individual users based on their online interests and digital activity.

Under the EU’s Digital Markets Act legislation, Meta platforms will have to gain explicit consent before tracking a user for advertising purposes.

The paid option “balances the requirements of European regulators while giving users choice and allowing Meta to continue serving all people”, the company’s statement reads.

Users aged 18 and older in the EU’s 27 member countries, plus Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein will still have the choice of continuing to use Facebook or Instagram with ads.


The original article contains 357 words, the summary contains 162 words. Saved 55%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] Papanca 2 points 10 months ago

I've never used any of those media, but honestly; i would find it reasonable to pay IF they would not continue to track you and do all kinds of shady stuff. But now, basically some people will pay and still get their privacy invaded.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

unrelated, but why can't I see a single comment?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

Did you pay for them? It's 12c per comment, or you can buy the whole thread for 70c

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I noticed that a lot of comments don't show up if you don't set your language right in your lemmy settings. I just set it to N/A and also shift clicked on English, and it made a lot of invisible comments show up.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

that actually did the trick. thank you so much

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