Comment by Parae
9 days ago
You think Meta would spy less on us and show us less ads if we payed to access their services ? They would just keep doing what they've been doing for ages and they would have even more money to keep their enshitification going.
We are already paying too much for all the services with subscription. Like Spotify, Netflix and others...
It could be made a question of legislation. If it was forbidden, and the "cost of business" too high for them to dare, then it can work. We would need to do more than touch them with the satin gloves we are using now though.
If we say ads are an attack on our attention, time and money - then it’s a different ball game entirely.
Their incentives would be aligned to users, not advertisers.
The ideological changes alone would be like living in a different world entirely.
Heck, maybe micropayments would become viable at that point.
Plenty of other services (like Spotify) stop showing you ads if you pay them enough money.
Until they decide that ads can give some profit on top of your payment. See: youtube [0], Windows, Apple [1].
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34299433
Not to mention cable TV, the OG "ad-free" premium model.
I don't think that actually counts as "paying for content". The musicians make the "content", and Spotify pays all but the biggest ones a pittance.
That's more like "paying to not see ads" than "paying for content".
Spotify shoves podcast ads in your face.
Amazon does the same with product ads.
What do you think the constant reminders of "hey hey hey, use these autogenerated vibes based playlists that are more profitable to us because we filled them with AI generated fake artists" are?
Meanwhile spotify also has at least two autogenerated playlists of the songs you have chosen to play more than a few times. Literally "Here's the songs you recently took an interest in", and they do not fill your front page with that autogenerated playlist!
Because that copy they are shoving in your face is not Informing you of useful Features or Inviting you to try something we made, but is instead managed by the marketing department.
If such a plan exists its always just a temporary situation until they add ads back in to keep the line going up.
They stop showing ads if you pay for Instagram in the EU.
However they do not stop tracking you.
If you turn off personalised ads in the EU for insta they hijack your scrolling to give you "ad breaks" which is actually a really neat feature because it reminds me I've started doom scrolling and I close the app
Yep indeed.
I just wish I had the option they have in the Netherlands. Where you can set the "Following" tab as the primary and it doesn't constanly revert back.
A judge decreed that that must be done for users in the Netherlands but it's not available anywhere else.