Meta Is Rolling Out Paid Subscriptions For Insta, Facebook, & WhatsApp. Here’s What It’ll Cost

Meta? I hardly know her!

Meta has revealed it had the business plan of a drug dealer all along. Offer your products initially for free, and then, when the users are hooked, you jack up the price.

Well, Meta has basically half the world hooked, reaching 3.58 billion active users last December. So now that WhatsApp and Instagram have become essential (sorry, who uses Facebook?), Meta can start charging, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

BUT DON’T WORRY! This doesn’t mean everyone will be charged; no, Meta is just creating another paid tier in the apps that will allow extra features.

Instagram Plus and Facebook Plus will cost $3.99 a month each, while WhatsApp Plus will be $2.99 a month.

So what exactly will you get for just the price of a cup of coffee a month? Well, Instagram and Facebook Plus subscribers will now be able to see everyone who’s viewed their stories, spotlight one story a week for more views, extend story time, preview stories, and browse other people’s story viewership.

Useful stuff.

Oh, and there’s also animated reactions, customisable app icons and fonts, and additional pins. Basically, Fortnite skins are coming to Instagram.

WhatsApp is a similar story with app themes, custom ringtones, additional pinned chats, premium stickers, and probably more.

It’s not much, and it’s mostly cosmetic, but maybe fits the price point if you’re using these features as a professional rather than a regular user.

Certainly, these features could just be rolled out to all users for free, but Meta somewhat desperately needs another revenue stream at the moment. After shutting down development on its cash-draining VR sector, Meta is now going all in on AI and needs the cash to do so.

And that’s where the paid AI plans start coming into play.

You still with me?

We’ve got Meta One Plus at $7.99 a month and then Meta One Premium at $19.99 a month with a higher capacity. Meta AI will remain free.

The business model makes sense as it’s essentially what all the AI companies are doing right now (you have to pay for this somehow).

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

Meta One Essential is just $14.99 a month and offers an upgraded version of the Meta Verified plan. But the Meta One Advanced plan is all of that plus a boost to feed rankings and a push to get people to follow you. And that’s on offer for the low, low price of $49.99.

Meta has said that more features and plans will roll out over time, but until then, it looks like social media just became pay-to-win.

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