The move to charge Meta is considered a 'big gamble' by Mark Zuckerberg to 'deal' with the European Union's rules on limiting the ability to display personalized ads. Previously, authorities had threatened to limit Meta's ability to display personalized ads if it did not ask for users' permission.
Meta representatives detailed the plan in meetings with regulators in Ireland and Brussels in September, and the proposal has now been shared with other EU privacy regulators for comment.
Accordingly, users in Europe can choose between continuing to access Facebook and Instagram for free with ads or paying a monthly fee if they do not want any ads to appear on the platform. The plan is called SNA (subscription no ads).
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| The move to charge Meta is considered a 'big gamble' by Mark Zuckerberg to 'deal' with European Union rules in limiting the ability to display personalized ads. |
Meta plans to charge users around €10 per month for desktop and around €6 per month for each additional linked account. On mobile, the price will increase to around €13 per month.
This is seen as a major turning point for Meta. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long emphasized that the company's service is always free and supported by advertising to target users. At a conference in 2018, Zuckerberg asserted: "You don't need thousands of dollars to connect with people using our service."
However, Meta’s head has also been open to the idea of a paid service in response to increased privacy scrutiny. In early 2023, the company also introduced a paid account authentication feature alongside Snapchat and X (Twitter).
Users in other regions may not have this option yet, as Meta's proposal is largely a way to bypass EU authorities' requirements before collecting data for personalized advertising.
According to the WSJ, Meta's revenue in Europe was about $17.88 per Facebook user in the second quarter. There were an estimated 258 million monthly Facebook users and 257 million Instagram users in the first half of this year there, according to published data. As of June 30, there were 3.88 billion monthly active users on Meta's app.
But it’s unclear whether regulators in Ireland or Brussels would approve or require Meta to offer cheaper versions of its service. Some say Meta’s proposed prices may seem prohibitively expensive for most people, even if they don’t want their data used for ad targeting.
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