Meta: Paid subscription launch for Facebook and Instagram in Australia and New Zealand

Facebook and Instagram began launching their first week-long paid subscription service on Friday, testing users’ willingness to pay for previously free features on social media. Faced with declining advertising revenue, parent company Meta is trialling the subscription in Australia and New Zealand before introducing it to larger markets. The service costs $11.99 (€11.30) per month for online users and $14.99 for those using the mobile apps.

From Friday, Australian subscribers who present a government-issued ID will be able to apply for a blue authentication badge that will give them protection from identity theft, direct access to customer service and more visibility, according to the company. “We will gradually roll out access to Meta Verified to Facebook and Instagram and expect to achieve 100% availability within the first seven days of going live,” a Meta spokesperson told AFP. “This new feature aims to enhance the authenticity and security of our services,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a statement posted to Facebook and Instagram.

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Crucially, the move also provides Meta with a way to derive more revenue from its 2 billion users. Experts say the growing army of creators and influencers who make a living online may be the number one customer base for its paid services. Many of them complain about the difficulty of solving technical and administrative problems, which leads to delays and loss of income.

Some sort of “VIP services” can be “a very attractive proposition for a content creator”, noted Jonathon Hutchinson, Senior Lecturer in Online Communications at the University of Sydney. Meta often wanted to test new models, sometimes risky ones, only to give away what didn’t work, Hutchinson noted. “It’s part of a strategy to smoothly transition to a non-free model, where more and more services and features will be paid or subscription,” he told AFP. But before the launch, ordinary users weren’t too eager to donate money to a company that was already making huge amounts of their data.

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