The pay-to-play social media era

Meta and Twitter want your money now. Hey everyone, This week I wanted to share the latest installment in an ongoing series we're doing about the vibe shift happening in Silicon Valley right now. Tech workers are waking up to the idea that they now work for huge corporations, as users like you and me are discovering that things don't quite work the way they used to. The latest thing? Now, as Recode senior correspondent Shirin Ghaffary reports, you can pay to have a Facebook profile. Check out Shirin's story below and [click here to read more]( from our Silicon Valley vibe shift series. —Adam Clark Estes, editor Social media used to be free. Not anymore. “If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product” has long been a common refrain about the business of social media. The saying implies that you, the user, aren’t paying for apps like Instagram and Twitter because you’re giving away something else: your attention (and sometimes your content), which is sold to advertisers. But now, this free model of social media — subsidized by advertising — is under pressure. Social media companies can’t make as much money off their free users as they used to. A [weaker advertising market](, privacy [restrictions imposed by Apple]( that make it harder to track users and their preferences, and the perpetual [threat of regulation]( have made it harder for social media apps to sell ads. Which is why we’re seeing the beginnings of what might be a new era of social media: pay-to-play. On Sunday, Meta became the latest and largest major social media company to [announce a paid version]( of its products with the “Meta Verified” program. Facebook and Instagram will each charge users $12 a month for a blue verification badge, more protection against account impersonation, access to “a real person” in customer support to help with common account issues, and — most importantly — ”increased reach and visibility.” That means users who pay will have their content shown more in search, comments, and recommendations. The company is testing the feature in Australia and New Zealand this week and said it will be rolled out in the US and other countries soon. Meta’s news comes a few months after Twitter released an $8-a-month paid verification program as part of new owner Elon Musk’s [revamped Twitter Blue product](. While Meta is notorious for cloning its competitors, its subscription offering isn’t just another case of copycatting. It’s part of an industry-wide trend. In recent years, Snap, YouTube, and Discord have introduced or expanded premium products that charge users for special perks. [Snap]( gives subscribers early access to new features, [YouTube serves them]( fewer ads, and [Discord]( provides more customization options for people’s chat channels. Now, Meta — which owns the largest social media apps in the world — is validating the trend of a two-tiered user system in social media. In this system, only paid users will receive services that you might otherwise expect for free, like proactive protection from fraudsters who try to impersonate you and a [direct line of contact to customer support]( when you’re having technical difficulties. Meta says it’s still offering some level of basic support to free users, but beyond that, it needs to charge to cover the cost. But the most newsworthy part of Meta’s paid verification plan is not about how users who pay will get verified, or receive better customer support — but about how they’ll also get more visibility on Facebook and Instagram. Do you work at Meta or Twitter and have thoughts about what’s going on at your company? You can send us a tip at shirin.ghaffary@protonmail.com. We can grant requests for anonymity if needed. Signal number available upon request. In the past, in theory, everyone had the same opportunity to be seen on social media. Now, if you pay $12 a month on Meta Verified, you have better odds of other people finding your account and posts — because Meta’s apps will uprank your content over that of other non-paying users. It’s a system that creators who run professional businesses on Instagram and Facebook might find attractive but could also jeopardize the quality of users’ experience if it’s not executed carefully. With this new program, Meta is effectively blurring the line between advertising and organic content more than ever before. And with many users already complaining that Instagram can feel like a [virtual shopping mall](, full of creators plugging their own content and products, it’s hard to imagine that people will enjoy an even more commercialized experience. We don’t yet know the full effects of what Meta Verified will be on the Facebook ecosystem. But it’s clear that, moving forward, if you want to be fully seen, trusted, and taken care of on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms engaging in a premium model, you’ll need to pay up. Security and support are now a luxury, not a given If someone steals your credit card and impersonates you, you expect the bank to protect you. If you go to the supermarket and buy spoiled milk, you expect the cashier will give you a refund. Consumers expect a basic level of customer service from businesses. So it’s understandable [why some users]( are reacting to Meta’s news by arguing that basic services like customer support and account security should be free. “This really should just be part of the core product, the user should not have to pay for this,” commented one user on Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page after the announcement. Zuckerberg responded, saying that Facebook will still provide some basic support to everyone — but that checking people’s government IDs to verify them and providing on-call customer service is expensive, and Meta needs to charge to cover the cost. Social media’s customer support and security offerings have always been somewhat broken and unreliable. Apps like Facebook — which serves 2 billion people a day, for free — have never effectively scaled basic programs like customer helplines to assist people who are locked out of their accounts, and verification has always been selective. Often, the users who receive personal attention are VIPs like government officials, celebrities, media figures, or people who happened to know someone who worked at the company. So while it may seem like Facebook is charging for something it used to do for free, it’s actually charging for something it never did well. [Click here to read the full story]( [An illustration of a single pill falling out of a pill container, as well as pieces of paper in the shape of pills.]( Dion Lee/Vox [The forgotten victims of the Adderall shortage]( [People with narcolepsy need stimulants, too. 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