To be clear: I prefer to pay for things instead of having to see ads but 13€ / month!? For a meta product that has inherently user-hostile design patterns even without ads?
Who does this appeal to?
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You would have to pay me 13 Euro a month to even consider using this platform
Just stop using Instagram. I quit mainstream social media (Facebook, Instagram, Reddit,…) and the experience has been quite cathartic.
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I’ve been off of all social media for about a decade, but just yesterday i got a dm from someone from my past so i went and checked it out and then I checked a bunch of other stuff there too and my mental state instantly spiraled into a terrible place. Man that shit is toxic like nuclear waste.
Lemmy is social media too, don’t forget that.
No it’s not. Social media is where you know who the other person is and/or they know who you are. This is an anonymous forum, not social media.
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of content, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of social media arise due to the variety of stand-alone and built-in social media services currently available, there are some common features:
- Social media are interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based applications.
- User-generated content—such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos, and data generated through all online interactions—is the lifeblood of social media.
- Users create service-specific profiles for the website or app that are designed and maintained by the social media organization.
- Social media helps the development of online social networks by connecting a user’s profile with those of other individuals or groups.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media
Lemmy fits those criteria very well, and there’s nothing regarding anonymous profiles vs identified profiles. It may not be the only definition of social media, but it’s comprehensive and sensible.
Then email is also social media, Google docs is social media, phpBB is social media, Amazon review sections are social media, even Pornhub comment sections are social media, and so on…
If Lemmy fits the criteria, then so does 95% of the internet. Not a very useful definition, in that case.
Yeah, I guess under that definition any web-based application that allows for a person to create an account/profile and generate and post content is a form of social media. That makes sense when you consider that they’re media that allow for social interaction.
What’s your definition of social media? Genuinely interested because I’m not sure that there even is a single definition that can be agreed upon.
I think the whole public vs anonymous profiles thing doesn’t really stack up, as I can create profiles on Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok etc and provide no identifying information about myself, much as I do on Lemmy. I can also choose to add a profile picture and info about myself to identify myself on Lemmy if I choose, much as people do on other social media.
If your definition only includes those platforms that force you fully identify yourself in order to maintain a profile, that list will be pretty small and exclude a lot of sites that the vast majority would consider to be social media, including the ones I’ve named above.
Go try and make a fake Instagram account.
You might be able to create profiles anonymously, but you can’t use those services anonymously. They only work if you have other people added as friends or whatever, unlike content aggregators like lemmy or reddit, where you can be as anonymous as you want and still interact with all features of the site.
I think that narrows it down enough. If you can use all features of the platform without personally knowing anyone on it, it’s not social media.
Most definitions of social media are some form of “sharing content for the purpose of socializing in a public manner”. I wouldn’t think having a real life identity linked to your account would be a requirement for a social network. Why wouldn’t reddit, lemmy, or even an old school forum be considered social media? You’re sharing and discussing content on a community platform. I dunno, just something I’ve been thinking about recently as I’m using lemmy more.
Same same, but different
It’s not talking to people that’s damaging. Being able to socialize and discuss via media is healthy.
The damaging component is when an algorithm pushes unhealthy content because it drives engagement.
No one set out to create a rage/depression/anxiety algorithm, but those emotions tend to drive engagement better than more positive experiences. So if engagement is the goal, you get destructive systems.
Removing the algorithm does a lot for helping people engage with their peers and society at large in a more constructive context.
How many followers did you have and how many friends of yours were using the app, if you don’t mind sharing?
I had about 150 friends on Facebook when I quit. I’m quite recluse say so I didn’t really interact with them much.
As much as I’d love to, it’s not exactly easy when you rely on it for business :(
I did too and, while the benefit are higher than the loss, I usually feel really left out from one kind of partecipation to society and it’s a bit sad.
YouTube premium costs less than that, and that includes a Music streaming service
Thanks for the suggestion, YouTube.
I have seen SO many acounts praising youtube premium its bonkers, I refuse to believe that many people are paying for it. ItS gOt GrEaT mUsIC AnD I cAn SuPpOrT mY fAvOuRiTe CrEaTorS. same script every time.
You can believe whatever you want. Google Music sent me a free Nest Mini back in the day, and paying for YouTube Pro is right now the cheapest way of having voice activated ad-free playlists on it.
But feel free to give me an alternative “script” that gets similar functionality for cheaper.
Shrug, I spend $22 for family. It is a fantastic value when you get music+yt for the whole family.
Fuck the music. I pay for it just so I don’t have to see any ads when I’m trying to see a 2 minute movie trailer or an hour long tutorial. Worth it.
Yeah, quite frankly I watch so much that it’s just worth it. I don’t use other streaming services, so it’s fine for me.
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No ads on Mastodon
Technically, no reason why there couldn’t be. You could even have ad bots follow you to send you targeted ads.
No friends there either.
Well to be fair I’m still enjoying Mastodon a lot and Pixelfed too (which is the better Instagram replacement) but pretty much everyone I follow is somebody I don’t know in real life. Instagram is great to see what your extended circle of friends is doing.
That’s how it is during the first few years of social media. When left Twitter I had 75K followers but only knew about 20.
13 euros a month… hahahahahaaaa
A number thought up by some yank that doesn’t realise that’s what our whole fuckin internet connection costs each month 😂
I’m paying €44 a month for mobile broadband in Ireland 🥲
Wait you guys get internet for €13/month? cries in Canadian
At least in Germany you can’t. I feel your pain, my canadian friend.
At least home wifi isn’t as insane as cellular here I guess. We get American ads on the break room TV at work, their cellular plans are pennies compared to what we have to pay north of the border
Don’t let the ads fool you, there are so many hidden fees that the real price is basically double
Indian here. I pay approximately ₹2000 = 23 Euros for 200 Mbps… WiFi.
I get half and pay double, and thought that was quite reasonable
What are your cellular plans like?
I get half and pay double
I see…
What are your cellular plans like?
I have two SIMs, both have a plan for ₹666 = 7.5 Euros, 1.5GB per day, for 84 days…
There’s also a ₹1699 = 20 Euros plan for a year, 2.5GB per day.
€20 per year? That’s crazy. My girlfriend and I share a plan and combined pay almost $150 (about €100) per month (so $75 = €50 per month each)
To be fair… It’s not always at great speeds… But the coverage is great.
India has so many users that it’s spread thin amongst the billion+ people we have here.
How much are you paying, Canadian?
About $40/mo. for 100mbps for wifi. Cellular, I share with my girlfriend who gets a discount through work, we share 200GB for about $150/mo.
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I’ve just taken the app off my phone and use adblock when I’m on the desktop browser version. I still need social media to post my work out there (I get clients that way), but I don’t need to look at it 100 times a day.
It’s honestly been a big quality of life improvement to take all my social media off my phone. Been a month or two now and I really miss it a lot less than I thought I would and who knows how much time I’m saving.
They don’t want you to pay. They set the price artificially high to discourage you so they continue business as usual while complying to the laws. The price is a PITA charge to make it worth their while and to still profit from the ads they would have shown you.
I’ve never used IG but I feel like it would be a $3.99/month type of service. This price just tells us they are making way more than that serving ads or that your ad data alone is worth a decent bit of cash.
It’s a $0 per month type of service, even without ads.
It’s a -$10/month type of service, they’d have to pay me in order to use it… and they’d still be making money on the data and ads.
They set the price artificially high
Actually… it’s likely only slightly higher than what they get from ads per user, and still lower than what they get from compiling and selling all the information you agree to give them.
Users tend to severely underestimate how much their cumulative data can be sold for.
It’s disappointing that they only exclude the information use regarding ads.
So they will still track everything users do and profile them, just like any other free user. And they can sell to everyone else who pays for user data (e.g. AI learning, market research etc.). With that wording, they could even sell to ad companies, if they e.g. use the data for some algorithm optimisation in their tech department. So they leave the door open to keep selling the data to 3rd parties, while already charging the user ‘starting at’ 12.99€.
this doesn’t seem legal. at least - it god damn shouldn’t be
Now we know how much they’re making with tracking and ads per user.
They are still going to be tracking you. That isn’t going away.
They just won’t use the tracking for the explicit reason of creating ads for you. But that’s only because you are paying for no ads.
I guarantee the data is logged for all other purposes, and that the data is logged for future ad usage if you ever unsubscribe.
Secondly this doesn’t necessarily equate the profit from your specific ads. This is the result of a legal battle within the EU. That’s the only reason it exists. The price is determined as ‘high enough to not get into more legal trouble’.
I also think this subscription model has run into criticism from EU legislators/regulators as well, which will have to be decided upon. Basically Meta isn’t out of the doghouse yet.
Really, I’d say strip Meta of all its assets and dissolve the whole thing, maybe try some of the heads for all the shit they’ve pulled in the ICC? Like failing to act on genocides or actively working to incite mass violence, political unrest, etcetera.
Meta already demonstrably does this. I deleted my real Facebook in like 2016. Around 2019-2020, I created a new burner account to browse Marketplace with nearly all fake info expect my name, phone, and email. And lo and behold all of my friend suggestions are people I know and mostly were on the old account. The most charitable I can imagine is that those suggestion had me in their contacts which they agree to share with Facebook (which is problematic af imo) but it is extremely likely they just retain all of data especially since many of the people I was suggested have never had my current number/email.
You deleted your real Facebook account… but did you delete the anonymous shadow account…?
It’s not that Facebook hasn’t deleted the data from your real account, it’s that they keep tons of “anonymous” shadow accounts, each one of us probably has a dozen of them from different interactions with Facebook, and your new account most likely got suggestions from getting paired with those.
Did Facebook have contacts acess?
From me? Of course not. Unfortunately, I do live in society and do have to share my contact info with others, and I’m guessing the vast majority of people just spam the “okay” button as Facebook asks for contact access, mic access, camera access, access to your colon, etc.
There is this neat horrifying thing the Facebook app does by tracking your location and figuring out where you work in order to suggest colleagues you can add as well as I have noticed just tracking if you happen to be near another device with a unique account on it.
The huge swath of very intimate data they are collecting on us is so not ok and they have all kinds of creepy stuff they don’t even admit too.
Oh the data will absolutely be used for ads elsewhere. It’s just how the ad game works. It’s all interconnected. I also don’t think it’s inherently bad, it’s just what it is. It’s how targeted ads work. They will be stopping that. They just also won’t have to buy data themselves about you because they’re not showing you ads anymore.
I think this is much more likely what they think people will pay. And/or what they think a percentage of people will pay that will cover costs/lost revenue from other users leaving. They have basically zero incentive to make it a 1-to-1 replacement.
If capitalism has taught us anything.
The cost of goods to produce is almost never equal to, or related to, to the sale price.
Tbh this seems fine, it makes sense.
Either folks pay for the service, or they generate revenue another way, like seeing ads.
Are folks actually confused by this?
It’s Meta’s nonsense reply to being forced by the European data protection authorities (EDPB) to get consent before processing users data, which they should have from the beginning: https://edpb.europa.eu/news/news/2023/edpb-urgent-binding-decision-processing-personal-data-behavioural-advertising-meta_en
Yup just wanted to comment that it’s basically the “Yes you can track me” button vs the “I will pay” button. A lot of news sites already do the same thing. Not a paywall with content you can only see when payed but a pay or give consent to ads (which means tracking)
You’ll still see ads through. If not targeted and even not served by meta, a lot of the content shared by users on the platform is actually ads.
But I agree, the price is ridiculous
wE oFfEr ChOiCe.
