Content Corner
Our Facebook chain status-sharing aunties tried to warn us but we didn’t listen. Meta is going to start charging to use its platform — at least for some users.
Facebook and Instagram users can now pay US$11.99 each month to have their accounts verified as part of a trial launched in Australia and New Zealand. This provides a few benefits: the all-important verified “badge” (icon) next to an account name, improved customer support and security, a boost to an account’s algorithmic reach, and some undisclosed “exclusive features to express yourself in unique ways”, whatever that means.
Those of us who’ve kept an eye on the Elon Musk Twitter trashfire will recognise this as a familiar move, albeit one that’s tanked fewer companies’ share prices so far. (Btw, did you see Musk fired more employees this weekend? Can someone tell the last Twitter employee to turn off the office lights when they leave? That is, if they even have offices anymore).
To some, this is a chain reaction from tech’s humbling in 2022. Big tech’s stock price crumbled over the past twelve months. There have been industry-wide layoffs. The rivers of gold have dried up, some say, and now Meta is scrambling to find new ways to make money.
On the other hand, a lot of the “tech tough times” narrative is a bit too cute by half. Tech stocks have fallen, but really only to pre-pandemic values after a period of being pumped up by overenthusiastic investors who believed we were never going outside again and by an abundance of stimmy sloshing around the economy. The layoffs have pruned tech companies’ head counts back to what they were just a year or two ago. Some have argued these shifts aren’t motivated by fears of a recession but are rather “bosses reclaiming power from workers”.
Either way, the end of our beloved ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) has prompted tech to look for cash. What I find particularly interesting is who these new charges are targeted at: the creators. Creators have typically been the sought-after class of user. These are the power users who provide banger content for free that convinces users to spend time on a platform. Typically, platforms have given them special treatment and sometimes even a share of advertising revenue. (Semafor’s Ben Smith apparently used to say that Twitter giving journalists blue ticks was a great way to incentivise them to tweet).
What Meta’s Verified program does is flip this. Instead of looking at ways to bring new people on, Meta is looking at the creators with massive audiences as people who are locked to the platform because of the audiences they’ve built. It’s also trying to cash in on the prospective creators. If you’ve got dreams of becoming even a semi-professional influencer, joining a program like this is just the cost of doing business. It’s a creator tax.
It’s also probably worth noting that this is a way to clip the ticket on native sponsored content, a popular form of influencer marketing that’s all over Meta’s platforms but doesn’t kick anything back to the company.
Implicit in this is the idea that these users won’t go anywhere else. So far, I think Meta is right to gamble on this. Even with the emergence of TikTok, Meta’s demise has been somewhat exaggerated. Speaking from personal experience, I still have a Facebook account that I am loath to use yet am forced to semi-regularly.
Charging for Facebook and Instagram features might seem ridiculous. Your average punter isn’t going to cough up so they can access the Facebook page AFL Trade Rumours, Draft & Offseason News. But will the admin of that page? Maybe! So rather than trying to strike it big with a new product, Meta is looking to wring money from those who are trying to cash in. They’re the ones selling shovels in a gold rush.
Hyperlinks
Surveillance tech that ‘predicts crime before it happens’ used in 40% of Australian stores
Despite Auror being used by both Woolworths and Coles, I was gobsmacked to see that almost no one had written critically about it. (Crikey)
Gambling help services frustrated their ads are being blocked online but wagering ads given green light
Example #4831445 of how automated decision-making systems, even well-meaning ones, can cause harm. (The Guardian Australia)
Australia’s largest crypto gaming start-up is cutting staff
Immutable has hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank yet is laying off 11% of its staff. My eyeballs bulged when I read “Immutable marked up the value of its cryptocurrency and token holdings by half a billion dollars to $558 million”. Curious. (Sydney Morning Herald)
Twitter, TikTok and Google ordered to explain efforts to crack down on child abuse trade
Another part of the Online Safety Act is slowly coming into force. Worth keeping an eye on. (ABC News)
Twitter Australia has no staff left to deal with child sexual abuse material
Surprising absolutely no one, Elon Musk’s promise that his massive layoffs wouldn’t affect Twitter Australia’s ability to comply with local laws looks like it wasn’t even worth the bandwidth it consumed to send it. (Crikey)
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