In a "shock" (totally predictable) piece of news, Meta is introduced a fee for verification on Facebook and Instagram. whilst it is easy to think that this is a moneygrab following in the shadow of Twitter, I believe it speaks to a few different changes in the Social Platform meta.
pun intended.
Meta has been struggling to hold onto advertising revenue, which accounts for over 95% of their revenue streams, which means that it is very vulnerable to changes in the market. Some of these changes include GDPR rules in Europe, as well as adblock defaults and technologies on mobile and desktop devices. Not only this, the effectiveness of online advertising has also been brought into question and with the economy tanking and retail business suffering as consumer spending reduces, advertising gets cut.
But, there is more to it than ad revenues, as this change is largely targeted to content creators who use the platform to make a living. Because not only do they use Facebook, they are also spread across Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and the rest, and likely, all of them at some point will introduce user charges. This means that just like the streaming services, people will eventually be forced to pick and choose what they subscribe to, effectively locking them into some platforms, letting others slide.
They say that this is for increased authenticity and security, but that is actually an admission of failure to be able to adequately police the platform, something that has been brought into the light more over the last few years. Of course, they don't want to have to police it, because that is a can of worms, so this verification allows them to shirk a little of the responsibility, handing it off to the user instead.
As said, the meta is changing in regard to the digital economy, as it shifts from the centralized platforms having full control to there being more user-driven options. On top of this, users themselves are also finding more ways to monetize across platforms, often having a multipronged approach, using all available channels. This means that the platforms themselves have a problem that their influencers, are also diluting the value of the influence across multiple sources, which compete for ad revenue.
And, it also highlights another issue for these platforms, because $12 for web verification and 15 for Android and iOS (to cover their 30% fees) might not be much for some, but in many countries, that is quite a lot. Which means, verification, which comes with the added benefit of increased visibility, is out of reach. Factor in the costs of all the other subscription services people want to use and it becomes very expensive.
Granted, this is aimed at the content creators who are already earning, but what this in itself means is that the "non-professional" users will likely suffer, as their own content is driven off the platform, with advertising and influencer content taking its place. This could fundamentally change the quality of experience on the platforms, something that has already been reducing for a long time already.
2022 saw the first decrease in advertising revenue at Meta in its history, and while only slight, is likely cause for concern. There is the boost that Covid gave the tech platforms to consider however, as it is still well up on the pre-pandemic numbers.
While the world's largest companies have benefited heavily from the advertising model on the internet, it just doesn't scale long-term and turns into a race to the bottom. Not only that, it also comes with an increasingly difficult minefield to navigate, as advertisers jump on social bandwagons, like Adidas ending its business relationship with Kanye West (or whatever he is called), then realizing it is likely to cost them 1.3 billion in lost sales. Worth it?
And I think that this is going to continually be an issue going forward, where social outcry is going to drive business decisions, which is essentially something that is unwinnable - due to social platforms themselves. Because they have polarized every argument for clicks, people are now far more black and white in their thinking, which is going to affect the way they behave. Whilst this was good initially, once the platforms tied their survival to advertisers, they became enslaved by them, under the constant threat of having revenue withdrawn if the advertisers don't like what someone on a platform says.
Yes, it is possible to demonetize and ban those individuals, but the thing is that it is these types that are a drawcard for the platforms. It is just like how no one wants to watch "good news", they want to see the bad, because it makes them feel better about their lives, or gives them that sense of importance through their fear mechanisms.
It is not that there isn't room for advertising models on the internet, but it doesn't scale to the size it needs to be to support all of these very top heavy companies, which is part of the reason they are paring down their workforces heavily, with more t come. At the end of the day, something has to be produced in order to create value and most of the platforms are simply content buckets, making them reliant on what people are willing to share. If they are unable to keep the attention of creators, they will also be unable to keep the attention of users and if that happens, advertisers won't stay either.
However, the future (in my opinion) is in the move away from the centralized platforms that dictate to users, into the decentralized playgrounds that can be leveraged to support anyone. What happens is that it becomes a place of creativity and value creation, with that value going directly to the community of users, who also leverage the same mechanisms to spruik their product. It creates a far more direct link between creator and consumer, as well as generates value that can be used within the ecosystem, creating a feedback loop of value, where the creator matters, so does the consumer.
Just think, that mobile platform fee is currently about 30 HIVE a month to subscribe to in order to have a verified account - and you own nothing. Do that on Hive and at the end of the year it is 360 HIVE, plus the curation returns, plus what is actually earned. Yet, people still don't see the value in buying and owning a piece of the platform they use.
As said though,
The meta is changing.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
That critical mass seems a long way off, but it can happen surprisingly fast. A mass exodus from one or two large platforms and the entire scene changes again.
I just read that story a few hours ago. I just shook my head and moved on. Not surprising. Zuck has been floundering for awhile.
Hive and decentralized platforms are the future.
I don't know if they don't see the advantage, they just think it's too complicated. We need to make signing up easier and hide the complexity of the keys which I think scares off a lot of new users. If we can make Hive as easy to sign up for as Facebook, think of how much more growth we will see. We now have Hive Instagram (Liketu) and Hive Twitter (Threads), and of course we've always had Hive Wordpress, the regular blogging engine. Hive has so much for people. Just need to make it easier to get into.
I agree it should be simpler, but it is not that hard now, is it? I think Leo and ocdb are signing people up - Splinterlands too.
Is @howo still active with this?
Well the project works, but it's not actively maintained, I'll jump in to fix it if it breaks but adding new features is not in the horizon
Hope you are well mate :)
You too ! :)
All media sites have the choice of just two sources of revenue: subscription or advertising.
Sites like the New York Times went subscription a long time ago. Social media could hold out longer because it gets so many impressions, the advertising model just about worked.
As soon as users leave platforms, the advertising revenue drops - I think that's what's happened to Facebook. So they're now they'll collect subscriptions.
Yep. And that subscription requires having something valuable enough to be worth subscribing to - most media platforms don't have much that people would want to pay for daily.
traditional social network is so embed into society now days that it would almost impossible to eliminate it, they always come up with a new one, mostly because its easy and crowded, ppl need that attention, that doses of dopamine, the likes, the cloud even if they have to pay for it, now days its very well known that mainstream social media farm ppls data and they dont care, platforms like Hive are for the woke, we are the minority right now just need to pull more ppl in, thx for sharing ✌️
I think that people will start to ween themselves off some of the traditional media, as they will spread too thin, constantly moving from one to the other, eventually giving most up, unless they really offer value.
Now I see why they have started to place ad on any video, no matter whether the video belongs to the sharer.
Pretty crazy, eh? Do they pay for the content to the original owner?
No, I think, free money.
I'd have to agree with you that a lot of this probably has to do with them needing to be able to prove to the government that they are trying to do something about the uproar over specific content and behaviors. I'm glad I am not an influcencer so I don't have to deal with all this. I'm just a goofy middle aged guy who blogs on a blockchain based platform. :P
The bread and butter of blockchain! :D
Advertising is an animal forever changing, being on many platforms over the years some really great to use, with excellent communities, one could see no favorable returns to keep ones head above water.
Spinning a web, as it was referred to in earlier years, was being on many platforms sharing content. Today it has been revealed how many platforms sold your personal information.
Decentralized may have much more learning involved, will with time have a larger footprint, being focused on readily giving and receiving, far more rewarding as the years roll on.
This is the price of free platforms. It is a strange thing, where for example on Hive there is essentially no advertising, yet people want it to be like Facebook and complain when it isn't, whilst still not buying any Hive themselves :)
I think the decentralized environments and crypto in general will get far simpler in the next decade, improving overall experience. Hopefully though, it still encourages ownership of resources.
Right from outset invest, good mindset also booster to get up and running.
Investing always makes one feel more inclined to build and hold going forward, moving from pillar to post has never been an ideal way of growing anywhere.
With young generation coming in older platforms will fall by the wayside in the next decade.
Yet they seem to be trying to turn people away from investing into something actively. THey want people to not build anything of value, just put their money into what someone else is building :)
Some will venture trying their hand at gaming or other ways of spending time. Mine has always been the slow build, adding value, investing not only time but money to more stable setting. It's personal I suppose depends on ones traits.
the meta will change even more - and that is all to our (HIVE's) benefit. people will slowly come around and see the marvels of our blogging and social media technology :)
I think so too. It is going to be interesting to see what actually happens on social blockchains over the next handful of years. Might be quite different.
Maybe we will see a "minting" fee for new profiles soon on metas platforms. Or a subscription for less advertising.
I think that is what Twitter are doing already with theirs.
People say they want a better experience, yet keep doubling down on supporting those who destroy it.
Elon saved twitter and made it great again 😂😂😂 Not
People pay for subscriptions and patrons.
Same people: I need more money...
:D
Precisely!
I'm not a big fan of that company.
Is anyone?
Hehe I guess we are still early adopters! Time will tell if we are right eventually! :)
I am looking forward to Something happening at least! :D
Zuckerberg reminds me of Gates, always jumping on the ideas of others. He has the clout, I suppose, but he's not much of a leader... more a follower, in my opinion.
He has successfully been able to get the support of governments to keep him running! :D
True... makes it even worse ;)
I feel the days of freebies are kind of in danger. Like facebook was not giving any freebies to users but it was kind of overstuffed with left wing politics and so they ran out of funds as cambridge analytica happened. In short subscriptions are one of the ways they would want to stay in profit and return the VC funds. Who knows this becomes a trend?
"User pays" is definitely the way things are going now and will for a while at least. Hopefully, some people realize that you needn't just pay - you can also own.
Waiiiitttt what😂 so I can legitly verify my FB account... Or should I say Meta account... Much like on twitter??
If so.. Pretty cool.. Pretty cool... But mehhhh
Yeah. It is being rolled out in NZ and AUS first I think.
All these changes will only benefit decentralized platforms such as Threads in Hive or Lenster in Polygon to increase their user base.
I remember many years ago when Whatsapp was thinking of charging $1 a year and many users were very upset and started using other options as Telegram. The social media arena has started a no-win battle and it is only a matter of time before people discover new decentralized alternatives and decide to move away from Centralized Platforms.
$1 :D
Free models never work long-term. At some point, they run out of ways to cover costs.
Yes, $1 seems ridiculous but it is not the amount, it is the distance between being Free and not. In any case, it will be interesting to see how the social media competition war evolves, Twitter started the circus a few months ago, and I wonder which service will be following...
Precisely! It is a massive leap for many.
With how badly Meta has been doing lately, I am not surprised. They need to increase their cashflow and we can't really trust these centralized companies focused on just generating profits. The focus on ads makes a lot of these platforms also beholden to the advertisers and it's just not exactly what I think is that great.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
They have to focus on profits, they are a company. That is something people miss about Hive. WE can build here, without having to please a board.
Being beholden to advertisers is like being a slave - constantly having to please the overlords, by being mini-overlords.
Meta/Facebook and Instagram are money machines: they understood that people were getting money on their platform through paid sponsorships and more, so they decided to put a tax on them. I do not see wrong or right things here. Just a tax for verified people that are usually already monetizing their contents there.
Anyway, I know some sportmen (from wheelchair basketball) that had few thousands of followers, they were not monetizing the account and yet they were verified because they won World Championships and many other important stuffs so they thought to verify theirsevles. It's a pity that they will have eventually to pay for it as well an in this perspective, I would have created the "free scholarship" for people not monetizing their account. But that would have requested more investment from platforms for verifications.
So, after all, who has the power makes the law. We can simply hope that they are fair and to start engaging with decentralized platforms!
It is a slippry slope in terms of who will need to be verified though, as it will also come down to advertising etc. Because for example, verified will get more impressions, so what happens to the feeds of the unverified?
I think that in the end, the same story of paid ads on Facebook will happen. If you spend money advertising your Page, you will have some audience and you will compare in the feed even when you are not spending money. Otherwise, there will be oblivion
https://leofinance.io/threads/@andyblack/re-leothreads-h2mhy
The rewards earned on this comment will go directly to the people ( @andyblack ) sharing the post on LeoThreads.
I agree with your opinion and the way you compare what we can earn from decentralized platform like Hive in a year (doing post, curation, delegation). Thanks for sharing the research and a lots of information about centralized and decentralized platforms.
Gotta say, this comment doesn't really add much value :)
I'm not enough knowledgeable so this is very normal to write few words on your opinion. Thanks for your kind reply.
Nothing is gonna be free forever in this race of advancement.
I believe that situations like this will lead people who get informed and use their heads to turn towards our fantastic ecosystem.
Certainly fintastic if it continues to follow the right direction, if you transform it into a Meta2 on web3 then it is doomed to the same failures.
Obviously it's something that I don't wish for and that I don't think will happen also because currently and, I think for a while yet, we remain a niche product.
Congratulations @tarazkp! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)
Your next payout target is 260000 HP.
The unit is Hive Power equivalent because post and comment rewards can be split into HP and HBD
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCheck out our last posts:
Support the HiveBuzz project. Vote for our proposal!
Yay! 🤗
Your content has been boosted with Ecency Points, by @melinda010100.
Use Ecency daily to boost your growth on platform!
Support Ecency
Vote for new Proposal
Delegate HP and earn more
Really?
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Scams can exist for only so long, until people figure out what is going on. Most of these social media platforms were built with startup investor money an no real business model, as you wrote, no real value creation, just content and user capitalization.
This is where platforms such as Hive are the way forward. They actually create value for the user. The question is, how long will it take for the idea to catch on and drive mass adoption of the concept. This does not mean, mass adoption of Hive. Starting out early in the "race" does not automatically confer success. It might, but there is no guarantee.
According to their system, the rich will just keep getting richer. At everyone else's expense...
According to our Hive system, everyone wins, regardless of their income. The rich get richer, yes. But everyone has an opportunity to build :)
This post has been manually curated by the VYB curation project
Short summary by @reko:
Author @tarazkp writes that Meta has introduced a fee for verification on Facebook and Instagram. The change is largely targeted at content creators who use the platforms to make a living. This is an admission of failure to be able to adequately police the platform, something that has been brought into the light more over the last few years. The meta is changing in regard to the digital economy, as it shifts from the centralized platforms having full control to there being more user-driven options. The future is in the move away from the centralized platforms that dictate to users into the decentralized playgrounds that can be leveraged to support anyone.