Paid features are coming to Facebook and Instagram   

Meta has established a new relevant department

As The Verge reports , Facebook and Instagram may soon include several features that users will have to pay for.

In particular, Meta is preparing a new internal department, which will aim to identify such opportunities and develop the relevant features, for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. This new division, which will be called New Monetization Experiences, will be headed by Pratiti Raychoudhury, formerly head of Meta’s broader research and development efforts. The company’s intention was communicated to staff through an internal message received by all employees last week.

It is worth noting that John Hegeman, Meta’s head of monetization, gave The Verge more information about the whole project. In particular, he emphasized that the company will continue its efforts to increase its revenue from advertisements and thus does not plan to offer any assistance to deactivate them within its applications.

I think we see opportunities to create new types of products, features and experiences that people would be willing and excited to pay for.

Hegeman declined to elaborate on the paid features being considered, stressing that they won’t be a significant part of profits in the short term. On the contrary, he believes that their influence on the company’s finances will be seen over a period of five years.

Of course, Meta is not the only company in the space working on such features, as TikTok, Twitter and Discord already have or are experimenting with paid features. To this, Hegeman added:

We obviously keep an eye on what’s going on in the industry and I think there are a lot of companies that have done interesting things in this area that I hope we can learn from and emulate over time.

For the record, Facebook group admins can already charge for access to exclusive content, and virtual “stars” can be purchased to send to creators. Accordingly, WhatsApp charges some businesses for the ability to send messages to their customers, and Instagram recently announced that creators will also be able to start charging a subscription for access to exclusive content.