In fact, building on reports earlier this week that Meta had been considering launching an ad-free subscription tier for both Facebook and IG, The Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday on proposed pricing for these new options, based on a proposal that Meta submitted to EU officials last month.

The impetus for its proposed ad-free options is the evolving data privacy regulations of the EU, which are putting more strain on the company's capacity to use personalization based on user activity. With that no longer an option for many EU users due to the new Digital Services Act (D.S.A.), Meta has weighed its options and considered allowing ad-free subscriptions in the EU, which would then enable it to continue to provide an optimal user experience (i.e. users wouldn't be hit with irrelevant ads), while still generating equivalent revenue per user.

In other words, Meta is scared that showing untargeted ads to its users would decrease the user experience and ultimately, usage will suffer. Thus, perhaps an ad-free, pay-for-it, subscription model might be preferable, if drastic change can be sustained.

WSJ says, according to a draft version of the plan, Meta expects that an ad-free Facebook will run about $US14 a month, or $US17 a month for Facebook and Instagram.

Which is quite pricey, but on the other hand, some would surely pay that, and this could be used by Meta as a basis to start building more streamlined, ad-free versions of its applications.

The most difficult part of pricing this service is to ensure that Meta continues to maximize its revenue potential while capping the amount of revenue it intakes by charging a set amount each month.

For example, according to Meta's most recent performance update, the company currently makes $US17.88 per quarter for every EU user just based on ad exposure alone on Facebook.
That means, at a minimum, at least $US6 per month that Meta would need to make up for, per user, if they were to choose out of seeing ads on Facebook alone, and then there's also the fact that Meta needs to calculate what a monthly fee will mean in terms of the lost potential for future earnings on ads, based both on how many users opt in for its ad-free model and how long it holds the line on its price.

But still, even knowing this, $US14 a month does sound high. Or maybe Meta wants to begin high and observe the reaction, or it's weighing all these considerations and settling on a premium over the current price.

Either way, it is asking a lot. $US200 a year for an ad-free Facebook and IG? Would you pay it?
Again, at least some will pony up as other social media subscription packages have proven, and perhaps because of the D.S.A. shift, Meta can use that to pitch this as more of a positive offering, which would take people out from distracting promotion and paid political campaigns for a monthly fee.

I do believe that Meta likely would have to sweeten the offer as well, perhaps by including this in its Meta Verified package or by offering some additional features.

It is also interesting to see more subscription packages coming into play for social apps, as predicted by X owner Elon Musk. Elon's prediction was more based on AI bots and increasingly sophisticated bot creation processes, which will eventually make it impossible for platforms to weed out the fakes unless they start charging real users.

That is not exactly what is happening in this case, but even so, it does seem that this prophecy might be true at least in part, with a number of reasons now compelling the availability of more subscriptions.

That said, I do not think Meta will ever go to a fully subscription-based model, at least not while it is trying to maximize take-up of its next-level metaverse, which will only gain traction through broader adoption. Keeping access free, then, is the best path forward.

But it is interesting, either way.