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Interesting seeing so many people here not seeming to understand this was a response to EU regulation rather than a "good business move" by Meta. i.e. EU making

Interesting seeing so many people here not seeming to understand this was a response to EU regulation rather than a "good business move" by Meta. i.e. EU making it harder and harder to show ads, not being able to personalize, etc.

mananaysiempre 3y ago
This makes it all the more interesting whether the “submit or pay” model of GDPR compliance (already used by Le Monde, etc.) is accepted as “freely given consent” by the courts—there’s been some hubbub about that IIRC, but no definitive opinions. It doesn’t seem to have been the intent of the text as I read it, but we’ll see how it plays out. (E.g. a theorerical “submit or €1K” model probably shouldn’t pass on proportionality grounds, but then €10/mo is, I expect, already orders of magnitude more than Le Monde or even Facebook is getting from ads per visitor, so one could argue it’s also disproportionate.)
- conradfr 3y ago
  As a comparison Webedia low quality websites ask for 2€.
- bertil 3y ago
  I do think that’s a regulatory play, but as you say — expecting few people will take it, but giving the option will shut down criticism. Some here are worried that their data will still be used to train (ads) models: you can easily remove a large sample from your training set and still have a great predictive model. This would most likely not be hard to implement (modulo edge cases like whether you keep parameters trained on someone who has since decided to enroll in the training program). > orders of magnitude more than Le Monde or even Facebook is getting from ads per visitor No, Ads per visitor were roughly $18/m/u lately (quoting an anon on Twitter: check the financial reports), so modulo FX, €10 would be about 50% less. It would be a mistake to make it prohibitive. There’s a big debate on whether people picking the option would be valuable users or not. I suspect not (for reasons that rely on my experience working on the platform, so I won’t go into too much detail: explore the Ad tools to get what I mean).
  - mananaysiempre 3y ago
    > No, Ads per visitor were roughly $18/m/u lately What the hell, really? I thought run-of-the-mill web ads averaged out to like cents per visitor usually. Is Facebook really charging advertisers such a huge premium? Are people really spending so much time on it? (The last one may sound rhetorical, but still, I’d think most people couldn’t afford to spend a lot of time there, even among those who are well off enough to be on it in the first place.)
    - iamacyborg 3y ago
      > I thought run-of-the-mill web ads averaged out to like cents per visitor usually. That’s because inventory is near infinite and full of fraud. Facebook has much higher quality inventory (at least for ads displayed in their own apps).
  - jsnell 3y ago
    > No, Ads per visitor were roughly $18/m/u lately (quoting an anon on Twitter: check the financial reports) You're off by a factor of 3 there. That's the European ARPU per quarter, not per month.
    - userinanother 3y ago
      Yeah but the use numbers are vastly inflated too. The premium users are worth significantly more than a bot out of Indonesia
- signal11 3y ago
  I believe it’s already being challenged in Austria[1]. [1] https://www.euractiv.com/section/media/news/austria-challenges-eu-newspapers-pay-or-cookie-walls/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/media/news/austria-challeng...
  - mananaysiempre 3y ago
    Thank you! The wording in that article was confusing— > Austria’s data protection authority DSB ruled that readers can specifically say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to cookie paywalls[—] but according to the activists maintaining GDPRhub[1], the regulator’s decision was that the model is not compliant because “allow everything” can’t be the only (other) choice, as consent has to be specific. [1] https://gdprhub.eu/index.php?title=DSB_(Austria)_-_2023-0.174.027 https://gdprhub.eu/index.php?title=DSB_(Austria)_-_2023-0.17...
- jacooper 3y ago
  German Websites often use a similar model, and it has been ruled as illegal. https://noyb.eu/en/pay-or-okay-tech-news-site-heisede-illegal-decides-german-dpa https://noyb.eu/en/pay-or-okay-tech-news-site-heisede-illega...

mananaysiempre 3y ago

This makes it all the more interesting whether the “submit or pay” model of GDPR compliance (already used by Le Monde, etc.) is accepted as “freely given consent” by the courts—there’s been some hubbub about that IIRC, but no definitive opinions. It doesn’t seem to have been the intent of the text as I read it, but we’ll see how it plays out. (E.g. a theorerical “submit or €1K” model probably shouldn’t pass on proportionality grounds, but then €10/mo is, I expect, already orders of magnitude more than Le Monde or even Facebook is getting from ads per visitor, so one could argue it’s also disproportionate.)

conradfr 3y ago
As a comparison Webedia low quality websites ask for 2€.
bertil 3y ago
I do think that’s a regulatory play, but as you say — expecting few people will take it, but giving the option will shut down criticism. Some here are worried that their data will still be used to train (ads) models: you can easily remove a large sample from your training set and still have a great predictive model. This would most likely not be hard to implement (modulo edge cases like whether you keep parameters trained on someone who has since decided to enroll in the training program). > orders of magnitude more than Le Monde or even Facebook is getting from ads per visitor No, Ads per visitor were roughly $18/m/u lately (quoting an anon on Twitter: check the financial reports), so modulo FX, €10 would be about 50% less. It would be a mistake to make it prohibitive. There’s a big debate on whether people picking the option would be valuable users or not. I suspect not (for reasons that rely on my experience working on the platform, so I won’t go into too much detail: explore the Ad tools to get what I mean).
- mananaysiempre 3y ago
  > No, Ads per visitor were roughly $18/m/u lately What the hell, really? I thought run-of-the-mill web ads averaged out to like cents per visitor usually. Is Facebook really charging advertisers such a huge premium? Are people really spending so much time on it? (The last one may sound rhetorical, but still, I’d think most people couldn’t afford to spend a lot of time there, even among those who are well off enough to be on it in the first place.)
  - iamacyborg 3y ago
    > I thought run-of-the-mill web ads averaged out to like cents per visitor usually. That’s because inventory is near infinite and full of fraud. Facebook has much higher quality inventory (at least for ads displayed in their own apps).
- jsnell 3y ago
  > No, Ads per visitor were roughly $18/m/u lately (quoting an anon on Twitter: check the financial reports) You're off by a factor of 3 there. That's the European ARPU per quarter, not per month.
  - userinanother 3y ago
    Yeah but the use numbers are vastly inflated too. The premium users are worth significantly more than a bot out of Indonesia
signal11 3y ago
I believe it’s already being challenged in Austria[1]. [1] https://www.euractiv.com/section/media/news/austria-challenges-eu-newspapers-pay-or-cookie-walls/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/media/news/austria-challeng...
- mananaysiempre 3y ago
  Thank you! The wording in that article was confusing— > Austria’s data protection authority DSB ruled that readers can specifically say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to cookie paywalls[—] but according to the activists maintaining GDPRhub[1], the regulator’s decision was that the model is not compliant because “allow everything” can’t be the only (other) choice, as consent has to be specific. [1] https://gdprhub.eu/index.php?title=DSB_(Austria)_-_2023-0.174.027 https://gdprhub.eu/index.php?title=DSB_(Austria)_-_2023-0.17...
jacooper 3y ago
German Websites often use a similar model, and it has been ruled as illegal. https://noyb.eu/en/pay-or-okay-tech-news-site-heisede-illegal-decides-german-dpa https://noyb.eu/en/pay-or-okay-tech-news-site-heisede-illega...