For Elon Musk , Meta had to follow “the way of Twitter” to generate more income. Now Facebook and Instagram will charge $12 to verify accounts.
He celebrates it. Elon Musk , current CEO of Twitter, has described Mark Zuckerberg ‘s announcement about the next charge on Facebook and Instagram to verify accounts with the blue check as “inevitable”.
Musk, who has begun implementing monetization programs at Twitter since taking office in October 2022, was responding to a tweet that said the Meta CEO copied Twitter by charging for user verification statuses.
“Inevitable,” he said.
Meta joins the charges
Zuckerberg announced on Sunday that he would charge $12 ($15 if you subscribe from iOS) for Meta Verified, a form of account verification in his main apps.
“This new feature is about increasing authenticity and security across all of our services,” he said, adding that subscribers will get additional protection against phishing and direct access to customer service.
Meta will begin rolling out the service in Australia and New Zealand early this week.
“The market has already been tested by rivals, the advantages are mostly already there and it doesn’t take a lot of engineering time to create this new product, and it creates a new revenue stream at a time when most companies are facing to challenging economic hurdles,” said Matt Navarra, a social media consultant.
in-app charges
The tech sector is facing tough times and has seen over 108,000 layoffs at 380 tech companies in 2023 so far.
And Meta hasn’t been immune to such challenges, either, especially since Zuckerberg’s relentless search of the metaverse cost the company $13.7 billion in 2022. To cut costs, Meta laid off 11,000 people in November and vowed that 2023 will be a “Year of Efficiency” .