Meta’s “overpriced” ad-free subscriptions make privacy a “luxury good”: EU suit
Meta’s “overpriced” ad-free subscriptions make privacy a “luxury good”: EU suit
Meta's terms for data collection are still too vague, consumer groups allege.
Ad-free facebook has nothing to do with privacy. Nowhere they say they would not collect your data, they will just not show you ads.
It’s extremely annoying how media seems to confuse the two. Many of us would be happy to pay money for real guaranteed privacy, but this is not the option for that.
73Or you could just not use Facebook.
36The fee on Facebook costs 9.99 euros/month on the web or 12.99 euros/month on iOS and Android, which currently covers linked Instagram accounts. However, starting March 1, 2024, costs will go up. After that date, linking your Instagram or additional Meta accounts to your subscription will cost an extra 6 euros/month on the web and 8 euros/month on iOS and Android.
Oh yeah. That’s ridiculous. No one is going to pay that much per month for fricking Facebook. And they’ve got to know that. Their real money comes from all the data they sell, and they don’t want to actually risk it.
32Wait until years later they get caught "sneakily selling data of paid users".
31They know exactly what they were doing.
Google makes 3€ profit per user per month on big video ads, the most profitable type of advertisements.
There is no way Facebook makes any more than 2€ per user per month, so asking 10€ is blatant disrespect.
And if that 10€ would mean they stopped tracking it would have some merit. But no, it just stops adverts, your data still gets used for everyone elses ads.
Glad so many EU privacy councils saw through the lies and are suing Facebook.
12When I was in middle school (over ten years ago now, lol) I could have imagined people paying that much. We did a lot of connecting and socializing on Facebook. Over time I lost interest in the site though, and I think after I lost interest it got worse.
If anyone is still really entrenched in it with their friends, they may pay for it.
Who are we kidding though. Anyone stuck with Facebook for whatever reason will just take the ads.
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That CJEU ruling specifically said that "users must have the freedom to individually refuse consent [...] "if necessary for a reasonable fee."
Hahaha... That's a good one.
Imagine one of the biggest, fattest, richest companies in the world can't afford to abide by the law - except by charging exxagerated fees.
24deleted
21Nah, moving to the mountains during the middle ages was pretty cheap.
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Oh, you’re still being tracked.
16Facebook are an advertising platform. They only offer a paid tier because they now legally have to. They don't really want you to take the paid tier, they want you to explicitly opt in to the ad-supported 'free' one. - because by specifically agreeing to "I want the free Facebook with ads' option it means you're actively choosing to be served ads, which is what all the recent lawsuits have been about - users giving explicit consent to be targeted for advertising.
13I really wish they and all other advertising companies would spend more time thinking about why people hate and go through so much effort to avoid ads, then innovate ways to address that problem rather than spending so many resources coming up with ways to force users to adhere to advertising they hate.
10I guess that advertising has been around for 100s of years. For the vast majority of history it's been something people accept - nobody could avoid posters on the street, adverts in store windows and later it was adverts on the radio, in the cinema, then ads on TV... It's only incredibly recently that people have had even the possibility of blocking ads, and even then it's only a small subset of online adverts that can be blocked. Most ads (TV, radio, billboards, print...) are just as unavoidable and unblockqble as before.
Which basically means advertising has been part of people's lives since the day all of us were born. Mostly folks just accept it, like we accept we have to spent 2 minutes every single morning brushing our teeth even though we wish there was a better way.
It's just one of those tradeoffs. You can avoid that 2min every day but your life would be massively inconvenienced as a result (people would avoid you and you'd be in pain every day), and you can avoid ads by not using the internet, but life is inconvenienced as a result.
2Because they just want to make money, and doing what they're doing right now is the easiest/cheapest option, or maybe the most profitable one.
I do agree with you, though.
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While the assumption is not correct as they still harvest your data, the headline is true. Jeff Bezos can have no e-mail, no phone number, because if you need him, you'd find a way through his various representatives if not filtered out. If your boss wants to contact you, you are pretty much mandated to have channels for their requests, being logged into WhatsApp for their workchat, and being harassed if you miss something posted here.
9Is Facebook really still relevant? I know people use Instagram but Facebook?
Btw. I hate that I have to conesnt first (or Pay) so I can go to the Settings to delete my Account.
8Facebooks monthly active users are pretty stable/have grown in the last years
10Very much so. Your bubble isn't representative of the internet.
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Why do people do their absolute hardest to keep these shitty services alive? Facebook and Insta aren't necessary to survive. If they are too expensive to use and too ad-riddled, people will leave them. Stop giving them a reason to stay. "Reasonable price" is a reason.
7Because people don't care and they want to upload the picture of their baby. They don't care that they see ads, they most likely don't know they are being tracked.
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If they set the pricing for the use of their services, this would naturally correlate with the price they pay all those who have their data mined without consent or opt out. Let's hope that this is a feature of every litigation or other challenge to Meta
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