Would You Pay For Social Media?

Social Media Subscriptions

Subscription models are all the rage nowadays, from software programs to social media and it’s easy to see why so many tech companies are following this path. A monthly income is an attractive model but for social media?

X, the app formerly known as Twitter offers X Basic at $3 per month, X Premium at $8 per month, and X Premium+ at $16 per month, giving Xers (Tweeters) various levels of service not available to non-paying users. Facebook with Instagram also offers an ad-free monthly subscription of around $10, as do many other platforms such as LinkedIn and TikTok (around $7.50 per month). But the big question is, what are you getting for those hard-earned dollars/euros/pounds? Not very much really, except perhaps, bragging rights. To put subscriptions in perspective, my family pays around $100 per annum (GB£80) for Office 365 which gives 1TB of OneDrive storage and the full Office suite to each of the six members of the plan. To me, that’s tangible value for money which my wife and I use every single day in a productive way. Compare that to the privilege of putting out instantly forgettable and banal posts on X, Facebook, and Instagram, with very little productivity value, except perhaps monetisation if you’re sponsored to show off your new bikini or other such bling.

Value For Money Is What Really Counts

Just like beauty, this really is in the eye of the beholder. For those who enjoy a lively exchange on X, perhaps being able to edit their posts, post longer diatribes with fewer ads and wear the badge of blue ticks and some other negligible perks, it represents value for money. Although I have an X account, I very rarely post, simply follow the odd poster and maybe copy a link to an interesting video from time to time, so for me, it would not be value for money at all. Same for Facebook and Instagram which I very rarely use anyway. In fact, Facebook is now seen as terribly old-fashioned nowadays and my wife’s son, who is 27, never even uses it anymore and neither do his peers.

Some might term YouTube as social media, when in fact it’s really a streaming platform. But if we’re talking about subscriptions, it’s hard to ignore YouTube Premium which, although expensive at $14 per month or $23 family membership for up to six people, certainly represents better value for money than subbing to X and other social media. That’s because you’re getting value for money in a very visible way – no ads, offline viewing, and YouTube Music. Because Argentina is a third-world country, it attracts much lower prices for such services. For example, I pay a lower price for Spotify but hardly ever use it, but if I were to sign up for YouTube Premium for a third more than I currently pay for Spotify, I’d be getting ad-free videos and millions of music tracks, both of which I could use offline if I needed to.

In the end, value for money speaks for itself, and in my opinion, social media gives you very little when compared to other services that give you a tangible return.

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