Would you pay for Instagram and Facebook?

 Would you pay for Instagram and Facebook?

Getty Images

Fresh off the company’s 10% layoff, Meta is officially rolling out subscriptions for its apps in an effort to diversify its heavily ad-based revenue. Meta announced yesterday that users will be able to pay $3.99 a month for Facebook or Instagram Plus for features that predominantly seem to benefit influencers and people down bad for their crush: These new tiers will let you see how many people rewatched your story, provide a search function for story viewers, and let you extend stories beyond 24 hours. Meta is also rolling out plans for businesses and creators, with the most expensive plan at $49.99 a month offering access to human customer service agents. That’s not all WhatsApp Plus will let subscribers pay $2.99 a month for the ability to customize app themes, pin more conversations, and access premium stickers. Meta also introduced Meta AI subscription tiers at $7.99 and $19.99 a month for more compute power. The company didn’t specify what limits might be imposed on nonpaying users. Why now? The company’s non-advertising revenue—which includes hardware and subscriptions—was about $1.29 billion last quarter, a long way from its $55+ billion in advertising sales. But Meta needs to show investors it can make money off of its $600 billion AI infrastructure investment.