Grifters
There’s something going on in our Corporate Social Media, per Axios’ morning email thingie:
⚡ What’s happening: Meta said Sunday that it’s starting to trial a new paid verification service for Instagram and Facebook users to receive a badge signifying that they’ve authenticated their identity.
- For $11.99 or $14.99 monthly, customers receive “proactive account monitoring for impersonators” and “access to a real person” for account issues.
Imagine your now-verified Facebook Rage Uncle paying. I don’t know why I find this so amusing, but I do.
🐦 The move follows Twitter’s announcement Friday that two-factor authentication via text message will be offered only to paying Twitter Blue customers after March 20.
- With Twitter Blue now relaunched, customers can pay monthly for a blue checkmark on Twitter. That lets them edit tweets, see fewer ads “soon,” post longer tweets and be featured more prominently on other users’ timelines.
I’m sure the advertisers will be delighted that paying customers won’t see their ads.
👻 Snap’s Snapchat+ launched last year for $3.99 monthly and gives paying customers access to more content options, including graphics and settings.
- Dating apps — including Hinge and Tinder — have been testing $50 to $60 and $500monthly plans for “motivated daters” who want their “likes” to be seen faster.
$500/mo is not motivated, that is a working professional, if you know what I mean and I think you do. (And no shade on sex workers is intended.)
Uber, Lyft, Instacart and DoorDash have all launched subscription services that promise faster service and bundled discounts.
And I do not know this for a fact, but I would guess that approximately $0 Ameros goes to the delivery people.
Anyway, how long before Lord Damp Nut jumps on this? You know he hates leaving money on the table.
Mock Paper Scissors 
Hell, they’re probably trying to figure out how much they can charge them to be the folks driving and delivering to the
suckers‘motivated customers’.And the folks paying those subscription fees sure as hell aren’t going to be good tippers. “I’m already paying $50 a month for this!”
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BDR –
That’s a super-duper good point!
Rgds,
TG
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So, what you are saying is, Uber/Lyft is/are extraction industries. Good to know (and they can eat my whole butt for their treatment of workers).
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When my parents told me to follow my dreams, I went back to bed and promptly fell asleep.
They were not amused.
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Quote loaded for when the businesses inexplicably fail-
“I don’t know why the sacrifice didn’t work. The science seemed so solid. I’d jump right in that volcano, if I wasn’t so good at whistling.”
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This smells like a stop-gap measure to cover revenue shortfalls from some advertisers not wanting to be associated with toxicity or pay the current rates due to decreasing subscriber numbers.
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Not JUST greed, then.
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It is amusing to me that people would pay for this sort of thing, all to try to get visibility for bitching about the price of eggs and gas. I try hard not to be unkind to people, but this is funny.
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A LOT of people use FB and Insta to promote their businesses. It ani’t all trolls and “influencers”. Most of the food trucks here in town, for example, their only online presence is FB.
This is why I resist the constant calls to “Delete your Facebook!!” it’s my only link to some very dear friends, like Mugsy : https://www.facebook.com/DogTownLounge
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And now some of them won’t be able to afford to keep those pages, which is not amusing. I’m sorry about that, not only for the few here in town yet whose only online existence is a FB page.
Sorry, though; the rage uncle paying to rage is still amusing.
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