Poll: Would you pay for ad-free Instagram and Facebook?

Meta announced today that users in the UK will soon have the option to pay a small monthly fee to access its popular social media platforms without seeing ads. Though Facebook and Instagram will still collect the kinds of personal user data they use to target ads, no ads will be displayed to users enrolled in the new payment program.

New paid options are meant to address the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office consent or pay guidance that says online services must allow users to pay a fee in order to “avoid their personal information being used for personalised advertising” — exactly what Meta is doing here. For now, the option is exclusive to the UK.

UK-based users are getting options to pay £2.99 (~$4) a month to opt out of ads on the web, or £3.99 (~$5) a month to remove ads from the Facebook and Instagram mobile apps. But of course, the traditional social media business model is built on ad revenue, and ads on Instagram and Facebook are pervasive in all markets.

We’re wondering: if you’re in the US, would you pay $4 to $5 a month to remove ads from Meta’s social apps?

As Meta tells it, opting to pay for Facebook and Instagram in the UK won’t stop the platforms from collecting your personal data — it’ll only stop them from showing you ads as you browse. That’s a benefit plenty of people would pay for, but it’s important not to think of Meta’s new subscription offerings as any type of privacy protection.

Meta says that allowing personalized ads on its platforms is good not only for advertisers, but also for you: such ads “help people discover relevant, new products and services,” the company writes. Users in the UK will be notified of these new subscription options over the next few weeks.

If you had the chance to pay a few bucks a month to remove ads from your Facebook and Instagram feeds, would you? Let us know in the comments.