You may, in the near future, have to pay to access certain contents on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Meta, the parent company of these apps is putting together an entire division whose sole purpose is to over the rollout and management of paid features, The Verge reports.
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Meta gets its revenue from ads, but that took a hit when Apple allowed its iOS users to decide if they would like their online activities to be tracked by apps like Meta’s. This, coupled with dwindling digital ad spending across the board, has necessitated the need to explore paid features as another source of revenue, according to The Verge.
Meta has billions of users across these three platforms and so the introduction of paid feature could rake in much-needed revenue, industry experts say.
Speaking to The Verge, Meta’s VP of monetization overseeing the group, John Hegeman, said the company had no plans to let people pay to turn off ads in its apps.
I think we do see opportunities to build new types of products, features, and experiences that people would be willing to pay for and be excited to pay for.
Build-on on existing paid features
Currently, Facebook and Instagram have some paid features like virtual 'Stars' which users can buy and send to creators. There are also paid events and subscription products, while business account holders on WhatsApp can pay to message customers.
It is however unclear which paid features are being considered at the moment, but it would appear the company is taking cues from industry peers like Twitter, SnapChat and Telegram which have all recently introduced subscriptions that offer exclusive features to paid subscribers. Hegeman told the tech news outlet:
We’re obviously paying attention to what’s going on in the industry. And I think there are multiple companies that have done interesting things in this space that I think hopefully we can learn from and emulate over time.
Meta does not intend to take cuts of transactions and paid features and subscriptions until 2024.
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