Facebook and Instagram copy this expensive feature from Twitter

We laughed at Twitter and Elon Musk when he started selling verification badges for money. Who pays $8 for a blue tick next to their username? Meta firmly believes in such a business model and is now following Twitter.

Starting this week, users in Australia and New Zealand will be able to test buy the hook. Costs: $12 on the computer and $15 via Android and iOS. This allows users to verify themselves with an official ID (driver’s license, ID card) to get a blue tick in their profile.

Long-term subscription service planned

According to Meta, the long-term goal is to focus on the blue ticks that everyone can benefit from: content creators, companies and the community as such. The verification should make accounts more authentic.

Authenticity for money, does that work?

If people play along and the social media plan works, it could spell the end for many small businesses, freelancers, and content creators. 15 dollars (14.03 euros) a month is a proud price to prove to other users that you are really real. After all, you can get a Netflix membership for 13 euros a month – currently with tolerated account sharing.

How to subvert a system

Originally was the infamous blue ticks for public figures thought, especially celebrities, athletes, companies, lawyers and so on. They were happy victims of fake accounts, so you should be able to distinguish between the two. But now everyone can be verified.

Twitter had already shown that this leads to problems: Users had one for fun official Created a Nintendo Account and subscribed to the blue tick to register as the real to the annoyance of Nintendo, as the site posted a picture of Mario giving the viewer the finger.

Subscription system out of desperation?

Facebook and Instagram are no longer the social networks of choice. Twitter and TikTok have long outstripped the two. Is a paid subscription service just grasping at last straws?

Zuckerberg’s Metaverse swallows huge sums of money, so that 11,000 employees had to be laid off last fall – further rounds of layoffs could follow. Whether the Metaverse succeeds in its current variant remains to be seen.

A Twitter user finally sums it up: Not only are Facebook and Instagram users the product, with the new system they are also the customers.

link to Twitter content

Would you pay for a subscription?

Meta promises reach and authenticity for up to $15 a month. Would the service be worth it to you?

What was smiled at by many in autumn 2022 as a pipe dream and crazy idea by Elon Musk seems to be growing into a new reality. Do you think that social media will no longer be free in the future? Or is this just a showdown by Meta to save itself financially? Tell us in the comments!