An emerging shift within the social media sphere is effective class division in social platform discussions, whereby those who pay for access to apps get better prioritization and exposure for their contributions over those who do not.

Available for both X Premium and Snapchat+, respectively, these two services are now able to provide different levels of priority display as part of their benefits, and it looks now like Meta will do the same, with a new filter currently in testing that would let users prioritize their replies on posts as Meta Verified.
Meta's messing around with its own reply filter, so users could essentially separate out engagement from paying users in-stream.

Why would anyone want to do that?

Well, theoretically, at least, paying users are actual humans, because bot accounts can't and won't pay. So according to Elon Musk's push on subscriptions, the idea here is that by prioritizing paying accounts, you might be able to ensure even better that you are not dealing with bots and spammers, which may, in turn, help you prioritize your engagement.

But it's also, unwittingly, building a class system, which will be perfectly acceptable in developed countries and regions where shelling out $12 a month is not such a huge deal. But in developing markets, like, for instance, India, where there are more Facebook users than anywhere else, it definitely will create a wider chasm between the richer users who can afford to pay for priority listing and those who simply cannot.

For clarity, the Meta example, as of this early photo seems in no way priority placement akin to comments from X Premium subscribers appearing higher up in reply streams and just how Snapchat+ users appear higher up in Community Stories responses.

Now it doesn't seem to really make subscribers more visible and, thus just be an enabler to distinguish subscriber replies out from everything else. Up to one to do whatever from there, but presumably the trigger would be so that they could then accord higher precedence to these users.

Meta did try expanded reach for Meta Verified profiles in the first iteration of the program but dropped that quickly. Meta hasn't said why it did this but has added some new expanded exposure benefits to its Verification for Business package, priced at $US21 per month, and is testing them now in New Zealand.

So if this isn't a direct reach benefit, as such, Meta has been playing around with this element.
Which feels kinda counterintuitive, especially when you also consider that fewer people are now posting to social apps, and as such, any de-prioritization of their comments is likely to act as a disincentive, not the other way around.

For example, on X, 80% of its users only use the platform in "read only mode", according to X itself. Meta also recently said that despite aggregate time spent in its apps rising - which is mostly because more people spend longer watching AI-recommended Reels, for example, - creation and engagement decline with fewer posting on both Facebook and Instagram than ever before.

These days, people tend to seek more content through social applications, share them through their personal messages with fewer friends, and not as much updating in the news feed compared to the good old times. The excitement of social applications wearing off, the platforms are gradually turning more entertainment-oriented.

It can only imagine that non-posters will be even less likely to share, because now it will be even less likely to be seen.
Maybe, for a small amount of users, extra exposure is the encouragement they need, but since most users never post anyway you're just giving them one more reason not to bother.

And that is before you have even looked at the simple inability of people to pay, and their voices de-prioritized going forward.

The great promise of social media was a "global town square," a place where anybody could talk with celebrities and world leaders alike, all equal players in the game. Building barriers around money limits that ideal, while the purity of the medium has faded a little over time, pushing monetization of participation is clearly a step in the wrong direction, too narrow and restrictive to fit through, in this case for further narrowing conversation.

But as Elon says, that's the only way that he can think of how to disincentivise bots, and get in front of the coming flood of AI bots.

There are no easy answers on that one, which may mean maybe, we actually do need to charge, and ration the conversation either way.

Selling verification devalues the concept, while selling reach shrinks the scope of participation.

Surely, that are both equally consequential considerations.