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Ad-free Facebook, Instagram access planned for $14 per month in Europe
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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The system seems to be;
Isn't this exactly what Netflix is trying to do with their paid subscribers?
Netflix didn't start with ads, and the ads don't affect pre-existing subscription tiers.
... other than the fact that they cost more to 'make room for' the ad-supported service at and near the former price points.
Did some more research and Netflix did remove their "Basic" plan when they added the cheaper ad-supported tier. They also raised the prices of their other plans, but those increases were consistent historically, so I'm not convinced the addition of an ad-supported tier caused them.
For what it's worth, Facebook didn't have ads way back in the day
Uh, no. The system is:
they don't 'win' if europeans tell zuk to take a hike in sufficient numbers. decline the tracking for 'free' use and declining the paid option.
So basically decline to use Facebook? I’m skeptical. People will just opt in to the tracking, most people don’t care. Or maybe they’ll post on Facebook about how they don’t like it.
Even if they did and chose to go to some other platform, they’ll eventually run up against the same business model decisions.
The question is how it affects their numbers. When a company like Facebook misses growth (or, god forbid, actually shrinks) the market punishes them for it.
That said, Zuck is not Elon. I’m more confident FB has a plan and isn’t just shooting from the hip. They likely have a model for some shrinkage and decided on $14 because X% of users are expected to accept targeting, Y% will abandon the platform (or decrease engagement), and Z% will pay. I bet they picked a number that would make Z small but not non-existent.
Well yeah I guess I am just highly skeptical that it will meaningfully affect their numbers. By and large anyone who is still on Facebook either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care about this (or some combo of both).
I’m just trying to imagine the person who didn’t know Facebook was tracking them, but now with this opt in will understand the ramifications of that and abandon the Facebook platform. It’s hard for me to see this being anything more than a rounding error on their numbers.
Yep:
Amazon is sticking ads in Prime Video shows and movies unless you pay more
Netflix with ads arrives
we've been using prime video quite a bit here with our latest 'trial'. the ux has degraded a lot since the last one we had. they're pushing the paid shit (third-party subs, rentals, 'purchases') way too much on the 'related' and other lists and links. it's gotten so bad, you need to use a third-party site just to find the 'free with prime' content, because amazon sure af ain't gonna list it so you can find it easily.
Yup. Add "a few" "unobtrusive" ads "relevant to your interests" to the $14 dollar tier while offering a new $18 ad-free tier.
I stopped using Facebook years and years ago when adblockers failed to stop FB ads. I have yet to find one that actually works.
When I took a look to see if it had improved, the feed wasn't even chronological. I get posts from days ago on top and posts from hours ago buried pages in. The posts at the top of the feed are even ones I've seen before. FB has become entirely useless and only bother for the few groups that insist on using it.
traditional rules-based blockers like ublock origin fail because facebook randomizes tags and code on their pages specifically to prevent them from working well, or even at all.
fbpurity.com is designed for facebook.
Ads don't particularly bother me but they do get tiresome when every other post is an ad. I don't use FB though. YouTube ads are getting increasingly irritating - it seems that every two minutes during a video there will be an ad break, but I refuse to pay for a subscription for the small amount I use YouTube. I think there are some alternative interfaces which stop the ads but I keep forgetting to use/try them.
Try YouTube Revanced (requires modding APK) or LibreTube (available on F-Droid) if you're on Android. Go with SmartTube on Android TV. Just use Firefox + uBlock Origin if watching YouTube on a computer.
Libretube is the one I installed!