This is surely part of why they started with the EU - it’s (1) relatively wealthy but not US wealthy, and (2) their ad businesses are already at risk and becomi

This is surely part of why they started with the EU - it’s (1) relatively wealthy but not US wealthy, and (2) their ad businesses are already at risk and becoming a liability. A quick Google search says that Metas Average Revenue Per User is $11 worldwide, $60 in US/canada, and $18 in Europe. They have a 40% profit margin. So a $10/mo subscription in Europe is likely more profitable than ads. And would still be so in US market. There is a risky balance still - they’re obviously the best customers so the statistics may dramatically shift and they likely lose a chunk of signals to train their ad models against, meaning worse performance. That’s an opportunity though, I suspect that a huge cost of theirs is the ad engineering and they can potentially cut down on all that infra - from training to serving. And yea, if the billion dollar fines keep coming, it may also be a meaningful accounting decision.