Meta Verified: Is Facebook’s new feature worth the cost?
The Meta Verified feature will provide a badge indicating a verified account, direct access to customer support, and greater visibility
Subscribe to our newsletter!
- Facebook and Instagram, owned by Meta, are testing Meta Verified, a paid feature similar to Twitter’s blue check, allowing users to pay for a verified account.
- The Meta Verified feature will provide a badge indicating a verified account with a government ID, direct access to customer support, and greater visibility on the platform. The feature will cost $12 for a web subscription or $15 for iOS.
- The move has generated mixed reactions, with some questioning whether it’s appropriate to charge creators who contribute to Meta’s profits for basic features, while some analysts see it as a low-hanging-fruit response to the company’s headwinds on the digital advertising model.
After Elon Musk announced and implemented the paid Twitter blue check feature on the platform, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seemed to take inspiration as their social networking platforms Facebook and Instagram are testing Meta Verified where their users pay to have a verified account.
Meta Verified, primarily aimed at content creators, will give a badge to subscribers indicating their account has been verified with a government ID– which serves as an extra protection against impersonation. They will also get direct access to customer support as well as more visibility in the platform. According to Zuckerberg, the testing of the new feature will begin in New Zealand and Australia this week and will roll out to other countries soon. Moreover, with a $4-7 difference from Twitter’s $8 blue check, Meta’s will cost $12 for a web subscription or $15 for iOS.
Although several other platforms have already offered paid subscriptions, people still had various reactions to Facebook’s news as it ditches its years of branding itself as “free and always will be”. However, it can be remembered that in 2021, Apple introduced privacy changes that required apps to ask users permission to track their activity across other apps and the internet which significantly affected the advertising-based model of Meta—which accounts to the majority of its revenue.
The move of Meta, of course, triggered various reactions from its billions of users.
“I would question if it’s appropriate to charge creators, who contribute to Meta’s massive profits, for basic features,” said Kat Molesworth, co-founder of the Creator Union.
She also pointed out how even big companies like “YouTube shares revenues pretty much 50/50 with its creators and has done for over a decade. YouTube recognises that without creators it would not have an ad business.”
On the other hand, citing the 11,00 workforce cutoff of Meta last November, Dan Ives, an analyst at the US financial services firm Wedbush Securities, says launching a subscription service is an obvious response to their layoff.
“Meta is seeing clear headwinds on the digital advertising model and this is a low-hanging-fruit way to potentially pick up some incremental revenue,” he says.
In 2021, Zuckerberg also took a risk in web3 as it changed its company name to Meta and rebranded its aim to bring the metaverse to its users. By 2022, they allowed their users to post their non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other digital collectibles to their accounts by linking their wallets. (Read more: You Can Now Post Your NFTs on Facebook and Instagram)
In June last year, Facebook announced its first step of launching its digital wallet “for the metaverse” by changing Facebook Pay to Meta Pay. (Read more: Facebook to Launch Meta Pay, a Metaverse Wallet)
Recently, Meta’s digital wallet Novi was removed from the list of the registered Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) under the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas nine months after its listing. According to Meta, Novi’s pilot ended on September 1, 2022. (Read more: Novi No Longer Included on BSP List of VASP Licensees)
This article is published on BitPinas: Meta Verified: Is Facebook’s new feature worth the cost?
Disclaimer: BitPinas articles and its external content are not financial advice. The team serves to deliver independent, unbiased news to provide information for Philippine-crypto and beyond.
