It will be difficult to pretend to be surprised. User reaction was almost instantaneous when Meta announced the arrival of new paid plans to Facebook and Instagram. Concretely, this subscription, currently tested in Australia and New Zealand and priced at the equivalent of €16, gives enough of the precious sesame of social networks above all: the certificate badge. In other words, Mark Zuckerberg’s group is following exactly the path Twitter took a while ago.
Inevitably, the news was not particularly well received by users. Voices rose from all over the internet to condemn this practice, which has already been discussed on Twitter. But the phenomenon is even more impressive thanks to the numbers released today by VPNOverview.com. There has been a very clear increase in the number of searches to delete your Facebook and Instagram account on Google Trends.
Users want to avoid Facebook and Instagram en masse
Indeed, searches for “disable Instagram” suddenly jumped 2400% this Sunday, February 19th, and 1566% for Facebook. Of course, this event is not a coincidence because it happened on the very day Meta announced that it was launching its new formula. The study doesn’t say whether the Internet users in question are actually leaving the platforms in question, but it’s a good indicator of poor public reception.
It was something to be expected. Elon Musk was also not particularly unanimous, announcing that the certification badge can now be obtained through a Twitter Blue subscription for $8 per month. This is why we see a turning point for social networks that are visibly looking for new ways to make money. From there, the latest events may only require caution, to know if users will follow the movement.