2/20/2023: Meta Verified
Yesterday Zuck announced Meta Verified, the paid subscription for Facebook and Instagram which is like Twitter Blue. Twitter Blue has been a flop with only 180K subscribers in the US. But Meta Verified’s customer support and impersonation monitoring is probably worth it for many businesses, influencers and heavy users. I am glad Meta finally has a solution for their notorious hacked account and fb-jail problems.
With that said, Meta Verified is unlikely to be a money printer. If they end up having 20M subscribers (1% of their user base), the annual revenue Meta Verified can bring in would be around $3B, which is only 3% of their $100B+ revenue and the margin is probably going to be a lot lower than their Ad Business. But customer support has been a big thorny problem Meta should have solved yesterday. It’s probably not a perfect solution as people who couldn’t afford to pay couldn’t access the service. But it is a solution. Considering everything, an imperfect solution is better than no solution. I just hope Meta Verified will live on and will not get canceled even if they have much fewer subscribers than expected.