I’m pretty convinced I’d pay 10x or more than that amount for a completely ad free version but I can’t be sure.
Part of me thinks the reason why they don’t offer that paid ad-free version of Facebook (which they built to try and appease the EU regulators) in the US is because their ARPU is so high that people would laugh at the price “Facebook/IG Premium” would have to cost.
Also, don’t forget that at least for now, paid subscriptions to social media apps would need to pay a 30% rent to the platform owner duopoly. This means that the price it would be it would cost would need to be 42% above than its ad ARPU just to break even.
The ad-free one doesn’t have to cost more than the ad-supported ARPU. There’s a pretty reasonable argument to be made that social media services with near-ubiquitous uptake should be regulated as utilities, and regulators could reasonably place the price at cost + a marginal profit margin as determined to be reasonable, like they do for other utilities that are privately-owned.
> Also, don’t forget that at least for now, paid subscriptions to social media apps would need to pay a 30% rent to the platform owner duopoly.
They don’t have to offer paid subscriptions via IAP.
I'll state up front that I'm not much of a socialist, so I realize opinions will vary, but it seems crazy to regulate something so frivolous as a social media site to the point of setting its prices. If people don't like Facebook, their ads, or their pricing, simply not using it is not a life-crippling suggestion the way "don't use the Internet" is.
So I'd support you on regulating broadband ISPs waaaaay before setting the prices X or FB can charge for meme-related services.
So, those numbers reflect a capital inflow to the US market rather than (as many people think) absurdly high conversion US users.
Meta stopped reporting user numbers/CPMs by geography after the market freaked out when user growth plateaued in the US (because they'd acquired basically everyone).
But the capital inflow is also because there is a lot of consumer spending in the US to convert.
