Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],

Welcome to another edition of Tech x Policy. 

Facebook-, Instagram-, and Whatsapp-owner Meta, as we all know, is primarily an ads business. Sure, it’s got its fingers in some other pies, like its virtual reality project Oculus and telecom infrastructure. But ad revenues are what keep it sailing. 

Last week, though, it made a new foray of sorts in another direction—subscription.  

Meta Verified, the technology major says, will cost roughly US$15 a month, and offer subscribers a range of benefits such as verification, increased reach on reels and explore tabs, and protection from impersonation. The service will be rolled out gradually in Australia and New Zealand for now.

This is nothing new for the space, I know. It’s the way the wind has been blowing for a while now. Tumblr had announced a similar offering last year, as did Twitter more recently. Snapchat has its own premium offering called Snapchat+; so do YouTube, Discord, and even Reddit. 

There’s been enough and more analyses of whether/how social media can become subscription-driven from the standpoint of regular users, so we won’t rehash that in this edition. Meta, however, has had its eye on another business for a while now—e-commerce. 

So where does Meta Verified fit in those plans?

Verified for business

Social media is a crowded, crowded space with cut-throat competition. And in the face of TikTok’s rise, Meta has seen its ad revenues decline. Indeed, earlier this year, Wall Street Journal reported how Facebook and Google’s* ads duopoly in the US may have been blunted, in part, by the growth of Tiktok. 

Meta has been banking on its short-video ‘Reels’ product, which it launched on Instagram in 2020 and has expanded to a few of its other platforms now, to take on the TikTok surge. But…