Social networks have entered a new era in which they are no longer completely free. This was their great attribute, the one that has defined them during the last decade and the one that has allowed them to gain millions and millions of users around the world.
This stage is behind us. Since last year, social networks have been introducing paid services, which offer users more advantageous conditions, mainly the benefit of using them without advertising. Linkedin and YouTube led the way (they have had this modality for years); Last year Snap and
“The movements of Meta and TikTok, the largest social networks in the world, confirm that we are facing a change of stage, during which, at a minimum, the free model will coexist with the paid one,” says Enrique San Juan, a consultant specialized in social networks and director of Community Internet.
This new stage is in its beginnings, since at the moment, the launches of Meta and ByteDance are on a small scale. In the case of Meta, the subscription will be activated only in Europe (worth 10 euros per month on the computer and 13 euros per month on the mobile), while in the case of TikTok this functionality is still in the development phase. test, as reported by Techcrunch last week.
What are the reasons behind this change in trend? According to Ferran Lalueza, professor of Information Sciences Studies at the UOC, the great reason that encompasses all the others is the need to make money in a scenario marked by instability and regulatory changes. In some cases – X is the most paradigmatic – “the payment service has a very simple reason, the urgency to achieve the long-awaited profitability,” he reasons. In fact, Elon Musk, the owner of the platform, said last month that he is considering charging a monthly fee to all users.
But in the vast majority of cases the measure does not respond to such a desperate situation, but rather is a response to a future threat: the drop in advertising revenues due to regulatory restrictions. With the approval of the Digital Services and Digital Markets laws, “the European Union is at the forefront of this trend, which sooner or later will spread to the rest of the countries,” Lalueza assures with conviction about the United States and China, which have always They have had less strict regulations. In any case, the fact that “the EU has imposed restrictions on access to personal data already means putting in check the model that has allowed them to be global.” The regulation, he maintains, “puts an end to the goose that lays the golden eggs, which was obtaining data to make highly personalized and efficient advertising,” he reasons.
In addition, San Juan points out, platforms suffer increasingly fierce competition as the supply of digital entertainment has grown. Increasingly, it is shared between traditional social networks and streaming content platforms. The economic situation is not good either: with inflation and the rise in interest rates, consumption has slowed down, and that has reduced the capacity of advertisers. In fact, last year, Meta saw its advertising revenue decline by 4% annually, the first drop in more than ten years.
The experts consulted comment that the user's paid subscription is a model that offers more stable income. It is necessary to see if it ultimately provides added value to the user or not, and also if it is imposed as a single model – as is the case of Netflix – or as a hybrid model, like Spotify. For now, everything points to the second option.
