Meta, the company that owns Instagram and Facebook, is thinking about charging people in Europe a monthly fee to use their apps on phones and computers. But there’s a catch: if you don’t want to pay, you have to let Meta use your personal information to show you targeted ads.
Why are they doing this? Well, European regulators have been trying to make big tech companies like Meta and Google stop making so much money from the data they get from users for free. They want to protect people’s privacy.
Other social media apps like TikTok, Snapchat, and X (formerly Twitter) have also started offering paid subscriptions to make money because they can’t rely solely on ads anymore due to privacy rules.
Meta is thinking about making these changes soon to follow a court ruling from Luxembourg that said Facebook (which is owned by Meta) can’t use people’s personal data for ads without their permission. The court suggested that companies should consider offering a subscription option.
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Here’s the plan: If you’re willing to pay a monthly fee, you can use Instagram and Facebook without seeing ads. But if you don’t want to pay, you’ll still get to use them, but you’ll see ads that are based on your personal info.
Some people are worried about this idea. They say that important rights, like privacy, shouldn’t be something only rich people can afford. They think it’s like saying you have to pay to vote or speak freely, which isn’t fair.
In Europe, there are also new rules coming into play that will make big tech companies share data with their competitors to make competition fairer. So, the tech world is going through some big changes.
Meta made a lot of money from ads last year, about $31.5 billion out of $32 billion in total revenue. Europe is one of their biggest markets after the US and Canada.
But Meta says they believe in free services supported by ads, and they’re trying to figure out how to follow the rules while keeping their apps free. They haven’t shared all the details yet, though.
