META WILL RUN A $11.99/MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE.

Following a similar move by Elon Musk at Twitter, Meta the company that owns Facebook and Instagram will introduce a premium subscription service with a starting cost of $11.99 per month to allow users to verify their accounts CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed on Sunday.

Users will be able to verify a login with a government ID get a blue badge get an extra look alike protection against accounts declaring to be you and get direct access to customer support with the assistance of Meta Verified which will be introduced in Australia and New Zealand this week according to Zuckerberg.

According to a statement he issued to his Facebook account this new feature is about boosting authenticity and security across our services.

The business added that accounts on Facebook and Instagram that have previously been verified will not be affected and that only people who are at least 18 years old will be able to subscribe. Businesses still need to start using the service.

For users in countries where they couldn't afford to spend $12 a month or in cash based economies with limited possibilities for sending the money to Meta Zuckerberg's cost plans for Meta Verified were not immediately apparent.

Last year Musk's initial attempts to launch a similar service on the rival social networking platform Twitter backfired severely with a disgraceful swarm of bogus accounts that frightened advertisers and raised concerns about the site's viability. He had to put the attempt on hold before picking it back up in December to a lukewarm reception.

Free?

Facebook had a crucial role in establishing the paradigm that dominates the most prominent platforms today where users enjoy free services that collect their data to sell to advertising. During the past 20 years this business model has brought in tens of billions of dollars annually along with other advertising powerhouses like Google. The Facebook homepage has proudly proclaimed that the service is free and always will be for many years.

Therefore the company quietly changed its tagline in 2019. Analysts at the time proposed that the site was never free because of the value of the user data. After the IPO of the California based company in 2012 Meta's ad revenue has decreased.

Facebook's daily users recently crossed two billion according to the company. Still due to inflation cutting into advertisers budgets and intense competition from applications like TikTok those users aren't generating less cash than they once did.

In addition Apple's regulatory reforms that restrict social networks ability to gather data and monetize advertising have hurt the company.

Several networks including Reddit, Snapchat and Twitter have already introduced premium programs due to similar considerations.

Zuckerberg thinks the metaverse a virtual reality environment will be the next online frontier and Meta is under fire for taking a significant risk there.

Investors penalized Meta last year pushing its share price down by an astounding two thirds in just one year, but the stock has made some progress in regaining lost territory in 2023. The most considerable workforce decrease in business history 11,000 layoffs or 13 percent of the workforce was announced by Meta in November.

The cutbacks are part of a wave of layoffs recently announced by Silicon Valley firms as the formerly impregnable industry confronts economic doom. Meta Verified will be less costly on the web than in mobile applications due to expenses applied by Apple for the iPhone or Google for devices running the Android operating system. According to Zuckerberg the monthly fee for iOS or Android will be $14.99 and $11.99 respectively.