How many times have we read or heard, with regards to social networks, that "if the product is free, you are the product"? The more we interact with the platform, the more data we provide. And this data is then used to build sophisticated templates that allow advertisers to reach us with targeted messages. This model is starting to show cracks though.
Platforms are struggling to stay relevant, and users are becoming increasingly aware of the damage done by spending too much time on social media. Many are understanding of using social media too much media without understanding the true cost of disclosing their data. The widely promoted disinformation on social media has led to an unprecedented distrust of these platforms. And it is a just distrust.
This is also why social media are trying to fix it (always in the name of profit). A trend that can lead to a revolution in social media, where privacy and content quality become the main values. Here's how the trajectory could proceed, starting with an already visible fact: the collapse in advertising spending.
The big engine: advertising on these models is going downhill
What are the causes? First of all, the current economic situation, which certainly doesn't help. And then, in general, the saturation of these social networks. The censorship atmosphere, the algorithm that values only the quarrelsomeness, the serious problems to the psyche of the people, younger species. And two more important factors: the new tug of war on data processing between institutions and social media, and the weight of the changes made by Apple to app monitoring. This has reduced the effectiveness of platforms, especially Facebook, in targeting ads and caused Meta's revenue to drop by approximately $12 billion in 2022 alone.
Even these, looking closely, are the inevitable consequence of what social networks have become. When you ask users if they want to give their personal information to a company, most say no. Staying at Apple, only 25% of users joined, which means that 75% of people who own an iPhone have turned off the faucet of free personal data. Meta tried to circumvent this block, catching a €400 million fine for violating the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). And that's just the beginning.
Declining ad spend by brands will be a serious problem for digital platforms precisely because ad revenue is their lifeblood. At the moment. And among the desperate solutions to avoid "dying", even if somehow the "old platforms" of social networks are already dead but they don't know it" (cit. from this post) has ticked that of the subscriptions.
End of "forever free" social media
In the beginning it was Twitter. the arrival of TwitterBlue, a paid service that allows users to verify their account, edit tweets, and more for around $8-10 a month. And the idea, which once again sees the much-reviled Elon Musk as a pioneer (there will be a reason why he is once again the richest man on the planet, and without selling oil and weapons). The prospect of charging a subscription for the use of social media is ideologically ugly: companies have made social media unlivable, and now they charge us to "clean" them. But so be it.
Evidently the move has been implemented, because after Twitter also Meta, which usually copies others, has launched its paid verification service called Goal Verified, which costs $12 a month. For now, it includes account verification, the coveted blue badge, and exclusive stickers for stories and reels.
The principle, however, at least opens up the hope of seeing social networks improve. A hope that is unfulfilled for now, because it seems that we simply have to pay for "something" more: then we are free to wallow between sterile controversies and perennial circles of attention: social networks do not seem to want to improve ethically. Far from it. There is even a very delicate smell of apartheid: don't you have a Twitter subscription? Say goodbye to two-factor authentication. Don't have that on Facebook? If they block your account and you want assistants, get in line. A long line.
How it will end
The move to paid membership models is a last resort for these social media platforms to stay relevant and not die. And it doesn't necessarily work, that it makes enough money to replace advertising revenue. At the moment, Twitter Blue it only generates $28 million a year (Twitter's advertising service generated over $4,5 billion). How long will it take to replace those revenues with subscriptions? If you can do it.
Not to mention that this new aura of "elitism", in contrast to the perception of social media until yesterday, could further alienate users. And maybe speed up the alternatives.
Which? You do. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is investing billions to transform his Metaverse actually. An evolution of current social media, but also a way to once again re-propose the advertising model which today, in its current forms, is dying. We'll see whether what he thought of (I doubt) or something that is more in synergy with augmented reality (his plan B and "my" plan A) comes true.
In any case, this paid social media model doesn't seem like the ultimate solution to me, but it could be the one that kills social media as we know it today, and makes us move on to the future.
