Advertising revenue is falling and the Metaverse experimental field is burning billions of dollars. Last year, the Facebook parent was unable to report an increase in sales for the first time in ten years. Thousands of jobs will be cut. Company founder Zuckerberg now wants to cash in on users for a security package.
Facebbok, like Twitter, wants to ask owners of verified accounts to pay extra in the future. The project under the name "Meta Verified" will start shortly, said company founder Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook. Among other things, users received additional protection against identity theft and separate access to customer service. It's about increasing security, Zuckerberg wrote. The package will initially be offered to users in New Zealand and Australia. The cost is reportedly $11.99 per month for web and Android users and $14.99 per month for iOS users. Other countries are to follow.
There will be no changes for accounts on Facebook and Instagram that are already verified. Only users over the age of 18 should be able to subscribe to the service. It is initially not available for companies.
The first reactions of the users are not only approval but also lack of understanding, sometimes even malice. So some etch that the guaranteed access to customer service alone is well worth the money. Others remind them that, in their eyes, security guarantees should actually be part of the business model.
Earlier this month, Facebook parent company Meta reported the first drop in sales since going public in 2012. Revenues fell last year by one percent to around $116.6 billion. In the final quarter, the minus was even four percent. At the same time, profits halved to almost 4.7 billion euros. The new model is therefore probably also an attempt to generate new income. Similarly, after his takeover of Twitter, Elon Musk had started silvering the blue verification tick. From now on, a monthly fee must also be paid for him.
The group is struggling with competition from the online service Tiktok. The service, with which short videos can be shared, is chasing market share from the Meta subsidiary Instagram in particular. The economic crisis is also weighing on Meta because companies are spending less on advertising on the various platforms. At the same time, however, the experimental Reality Labs division, which is responsible for the virtual world called Metaverse, is in the deep red. In the fourth quarter of 2022 alone, the minus amounted to $4.3 billion.
In November, Meta announced that it would cut 11,000 jobs - equivalent to around 13 percent of the total workforce. There should be no new hires until the end of March. However, according to the group, the number of daily Facebook users rose to over two billion for the first time last year.
Zuckerberg has proclaimed the current fiscal year the "Year of Efficiency". Among other things, he wants to streamline middle management and end projects that are not going well enough. In addition, artificial intelligence should help software engineers to work more productively.
