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

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.

The thing is, there’s no “we’ll show you generic ads with no tracking” option. It’s accept being tracked or pay (two shitty options).
It seems that companies can’t do ads nowadays unless it’s targeted ads, and that makes you think it’s not ads what gives money, but selling your data. To whom? For what ends? You’ll never know. And that’s the problem.
So, the options given are unacceptable. The only reasonable option is to download your data and close the account.
- It’s worth noting that the advertising industry never has had a concept of an untargetted advert. They have always had some marker to target their distribution; be that geographical placement of a billboard, the typical social status of a newspaper’s readership, or the target audience for a tv programme they run ads in. Truly untargetted ads would be effectively useless to an advertiser; nobody in Kolkatta is buying the new American Swiss Cheese from Danone; and nobody in Middle England is buying Japanese tentacle sex toys.
  Distribution channel (i.e. a site’s core purpose) is the last untargetted target option; sell sex stuff on porn sites, games stuff on games sites etc. However, when your platform is for everyone, does everything, hosts any kind of content, you have nothing to use.
  It is my opinion that the best solution for the average user is to ban cross-site tracking and scraping, but allow content and interaction based advertising within the site. If someone posts on a bunch of maternity groups, advertise them pumps etc. but someone searching that on Google should have the reasonable expectation that clicking on maternitytips.co.nz won’t mean their Facebook feed is full of pumps. I think for most people, that level of profiling is acceptable and, crucially, understandable. They can understand how the data footprint they create impacts what they see. Which is far less intrusive.
  That said, Facebook can burn, I left it nearly ten years ago and wouldn’t dream of returning.
- They won't stop tracking you. They'll just not show you ads. They can still track amdnusr the data though to customise your feed according to your data.
  I've uninstalled the apps.
  Also the price is pr account. It's not a reasonable price but they don't want you to pick that option anyway
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.
- Honest question:
  If you feel these tools are essential and there are no other options (not sure I agree, but that seems to be the argument you were making; let me know if I am wrong), what is the alternative?
  These things take money to keep the infrastructure running, pay staff, patch security vulnerabilities, and bring new features for those same communities to use. And they are also a public company, which means they have a legal responsibility to return money to shareholders.
  I’m not defending Meta, I refuse to use their platforms and will not be buying any of their hardware. But if it takes money to keep the lights on (at a minimum), how does offering ads or a subscription equate to a false choice?
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
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.
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.
- 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/
- That's impressive that customers pay that much to advertise on Facebook if true. that's an average CPM of like $50. (5 cents per ad view)
  At the same time, that article also claims that personalized ads are only worth 2x as much as regular ads, so that implies that FB/Instagram users should have the option to pay $5/month for ads without data tracking. I doubt that personalized ads are actually worth that much, but still.

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.

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

Social media ≠ social lives.

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

Most of society doesn't realize this yet, sadly.
Unfortunately, trans people and otherkin don't have much choice if they want to be safe in certain areas
- I agree. I'm myself part of a minority and social media are great to find a community and exchange with people of this community.
  My comment was about the post speaking about Meta. My go to for a safe space is now Mastodon which I don't consider as a company. We can always change instance or build our own. This is really different from other social media.
- To provide a better point, I could answer to your comment from here. This is a huge difference between the closed Meta and federation.
- otherkin
  lol

Suddenly Lemmy hosting costs seem really low...

Lemmy isn’t a social network like Facebook though
- Yeah, we don't need to support greedy capitalists, and also all the extra stuff that comes with being an actual company.
- But pixelfed is a social network like Instagram

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

Respectfully, an article from four years ago that I cannot read in full without creating an account, which seems to just reference a calculator from FT that is over a decade old at this point (whose sources I also cannot seem to find) doesn’t impress me. Do you have anything more recent, preferably that sites sources, that you can share? I’m genuinely interested in what data is actually worth
- All valid points. Tbh I'm not on FB or any of meta's services, and I don't care about FB enough to put in more research time. I consider this a data point to start from.
  Facebook should be required to show how a single set of a random user's data actually means even close to 13€ a month of revenue for them. This is not a good they willingly put out on the market, this is an alternative the law forces them to give to people, and it should actually have to be equivalent.

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…

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

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

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.
- Neither does the subscribtion

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 ?

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.
- 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.
“do we want the racist uncle and the boomer memes on the fedi ?”
The good thing about the fediverse is they can use an instance where their point of view or irrelevant content is accepted, and the rest don’t need to federate with them if they choose not to.
There are many instances where minorities are sheltered from bigotry and harassment isn’t tolerated. The fediverse can deal with these people without problems. It’s designed for it.
People don't have to pay though. The general idea that I hear from most is, that by accepting, things will be as they habe always been. They don't realise or seem to care thatbit has always been illegal

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

Did you pay for them? It's 12c per comment, or you can buy the whole thread for 70c
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.
- that actually did the trick. thank you so much

I can't access Instagram unless I agree to the new rules so yes it does affect end users.
- What happens to my data if I just leave it like that? Can facebook use it or not?

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.

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!

Glad i left meta a long time ago...