Technology

“It's free and always will be”

Honestly I'd pay 5 euros for instagram without ads. Just because it's a popular channel for friends and artists I follow and the ads in the timeline are making the whole experience so difficult.

14 is a lot though unless you work with these platforms.

I see that Mark wants to follow in Elon's footsteps. Burn it to the ground!

I'd like to see them try.

"personalized" ads. So does this mean if you pay $14 a month you'll still get the exact same amount of ads but they just won't be personalized? LOL

I hope this move will drive people away from degenerate Instagram and Facebook...

Let's not forget that paying for an ad free experience requires providing personal info on yourself that Facebook may not have. Same applies to tiktok which is testing ad free subscription.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Meta has a new plan to navigate the European Union's tough new ad privacy rules – charge users $14 a month.

The tech giant is considering getting customers in Europe to pay monthly subscription fees to use Instagram and Facebook if they don't agree to let Meta use their data to serve them ads, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The bloc's regulators ruled last year that Meta must give users the option to opt out of personalized ads based on their activity on their platforms.

Showing ads based on user engagement is an integral part of Meta's business model, but it's one that has come under increasing pressure over the past few years.

The potential subscription tiers are the latest sign of how Europe's tough regulatory approach is forcing tech giants to make major changes to their businesses.

Meta was handed a $1.3 billion fine by European regulators for data privacy violations in May, and the company also delayed the launch of its Twitter competitor Threads in Europe over regulatory uncertainty.

The original article contains 343 words, the summary contains 175 words. Saved 49%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Surprise surprise

They're missing the damned point. I have never used Facebook, but on any service if I'm paying a monthly fee it is to remove myself from the ad-based enshitification.

It's also what drives me crazy with respect to Microsoft products. I pay for MS 365, and I'd even be willing to pay for Windows if they'd leave me the fuck alone. I pay for ProtonMail and they do leave me alone, so I'll always stick with them. Any app that I use for which I can pay to remove ads, I do it... unless it's a subscription and I can't quite justify the perpetual expense, like for my preferred weather app MyRadar.

Hell, I almost bought into the MyRadar investment pitch until I saw that giving them $400 still wouldn't net me a lifetime subscription.

How about giving people a form for them to fill what kind of ads they want to see instead of spying on them to personalize ad