$144 for Facebook

Welcome to Floatplane user verification! Tuna tier for $4, Dolphin tier for $9, Whale for $15, and the Balaenoptera tier! Each tier gives you more authenticity than the last, and the Balaenoptera tier adds a whole pixel to the Whale tier mark (and nothing else)!

Yeah, Facebook's help-center is laughable at best, trauma inducing at worst. I used to be an admin on a Facebook page at my last job, where I had an anomaly that their help center didn't have an answer for. It is impossible to contact anyone via chat, phone or email.

I dont even want FB for free. THEY would have to pay ME

at a buffet, i personally sneak corndogs into the buffet so others can enjoy them. I hide 6 corndogs in my jacket pockets. it then, is a joy for me to see other patrons of the establishment eat my corndogs thinking they were part of the buffet.

having to pay for verification is terrible. verification should be “this account is who they say they are” now its being used as “i’m important now, pay attention to me because i bought a blue badge”. the amount of misinformation that will circulate because of these payed verification badges is going to be massive, especially in older people.

I love how LTT actually reads comments and listens to its community to improve the business.

Customer support is a feature because they have virtually none of it. Especially if they ban your account for no reason at all - it’s engineered to be impossible to contact them at all. Ironic for a “social” media company.

Facebook have to give me $144 per day for me to consider using Facebook sometimes.

Haven't opened Facebook in 3 years. I don't use Instagram, twitter, Snapchat, TikTok etc. I really don't feel I'm missing anything. My only "social media platform" is PLclip and to some extent, discord. And tbh, YT-shorts suck. You should be able to filter all shorts if you want to..

I like how Linus made a 180 of verification when he realised he could make stacks from selling a badge. Truth is, people love being different and standing out with a blue tick badge is a status symbol that for years, many have wanted but could never achieve.

If people want a “merch” level subscription, you could instead of sending merch directly, they get send a gift card on say quarterly basis (or whatever) and the person could then use it on whatever or save it up for something else. Could go in line with exclusive offers. Some channels provide a custom item each quarter so instead of sending that item, people would have the option to buy or pass. You likely would want to do this more in line with shirts where you can get the buy in with enough head room to align demand with supply. The other channels who offer membership perks like this seem to end up with a stock of un used custom merch they have to deal with at a later date.

I've got through lifelike so far with out using FB. Yes I signed on in 2009, because of people, but I've opened it like 3 times. I guess in the last 10 years they've collected lots of data about me without me caring too much. BUT I HATE the way subscriptions for useless life-needs are becoming a real thing.
Kill me now!

The twitter one I understood what he was going for. I ain’t gonna buy it but see the goal.
These Facebook ones are ridiculous though😅. You get even less for an even sillier platform

With, "free merch". You can allow people to select from items and if they don't choose anything they can get a credit which carries over. So maybe after awhile it's possible they can use the credit to get more expensive merch like the Screwdriever or backpack.

How about a charity tier where members get all the previous tier benefits and half the cost goes to a charity where Linus and Luke can shortlist a bunch of charities and the community can vote to choose which one they want to donate to every month?

Honestly, as someone who's ALWAYS in between sizes for almost EVERYTHING, I'd TOTALLY buy a shirt in "extra medium"

When companies have optional subscriptions they usually have 1-2 main features to sell it, then a bunch of fillers. The issue with Twitter Blue is the ONLY big promoted feature is a blue check next to your name

Honestly, A subscription for a verified tier is compelling if implemented correctly.
No ads, No datamining (kek), verified real user (separated from bots/anons), more engaged in public discourse, actual customer support (dedicated line), FB marketplace visibility / protection against scams (this is super important) etc other things actually important.
Note that a "free" tier without data "selling" and ad-infested page is unsustainable in the long run. Somewhere somewhat should have a revenue generating mechanism.
Still won't pay for Meta though. It's a fckn SCAM. I mainly use FB for marketplace / group marketplace. Not that hard to spot BS scammers, but will be useful to know you are dealing with "a real person"

Just add to the whale tier when you buy merch an additional option to get it signed. It might cost more depending on who you choose to sign it

I thought we were gonna find out Linus bought META stock for $144

Yeah I mean the ONLY reason I keep my YTM subscription at this point is the fact it comes with no ads on YT. $12/mo is steep for that for *Facebook* but Twitter’s $8 isn’t absurd if I knew I’d never see another ad and I had an imaginary verbal promise of no data sales.

you could probably do like a mini currency like twitch bits, you just buy them separately from a subscription or whatever and then you can either gift them to creators or buy merch with them

As an old head, FB was a ton of fun before they opened the flood gates. They basically merged drinking water and sewage pipes and lauded the increase in volume.

You know what could be cool? if merch messages were rich text so you could make certain parts more readable for Luke and Linus

Meta would need to pay me more than what their company costs to get me on Facebook

The best thing Facebook has going for it is FB marketplace. If you do make the whale mark, make it SUPER cheesey. Like, either a winking smiling and thumbs up whale leaning its elbow on the ring around it (like the scalloped ring around twitter blue). Or, have the shape of the whale be the check mark. Either would make great emotes

Viewers: Shut up and take my money!
Luke: _* Tries to provide value for extra money_
Viewers: *SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!*

Meta: "Twitter's doing it so that means we can too." Gold. 🤣

the main reason i use facebook is the ads are usually books and that gets me to add to my book collection that i dont buy and just add to wish list and then forget about :D

The Instagram support side is pretty much non existent. I am stuck in a 2fa loop but no way of escaping. I've had to physically write letters to them three times and they also go unanswered.

The intro animation/jingle was one of the things that kind of sparked my interest in LTT

Re: Facebook, Customer support is kind of useful. I have been unable to talk to literally anyone about any account issues, or even platform issues where some features are broken. Admittedly, support for users would be nice given we are already PAYING for it with our advertising eyeballs.
I'd pay the money in e heartbeat to get an organic feed like we used to have. Give me the stuff from the pages I like, and let me decide whether I want ads or not (as SOME of the ads eg for live gigs etc might actually be relevant/useful). Oh, and un-break features like photos, tagging, etc. The old Facebook UI had great features that they broke in the move to the simplified UI and I find Facebook less useful as a result.

2:55 There are occasions where you would need some sort of facebook support. And good luck finding it. A restaurant near me couldn't use it anymore after enabling two factor authentication (although providing a valid mobile number). I think they still try to find any kind support from facebook. Not actually use it, just trying to find it. I think I had issues with my account a few years ago and wasn't able to find any reachable support either. So yea, you don't need support most of the time - which should be the normal. But if you do and can't get any, its another whole level of frustration.

Linus went from "Can we agree to make fun of twitter blue for ever?" to asking about implementing twitter blue on floatplane within 6 minutes.
Sounds about right.

If Facebook starts charging them it will incentivize me to get off of social media.

Regarding the "Extram Medium" , in the helicopter business, the size between medium and heavy is "super medium"

Sign in using facebook is the only thing that I have used facebook for, for the last couple of years or so. Let's hope that it does not become paid 😂

I would never pay for fb or Twitter.... Especially when Twitter had a security breach recently... You think I'll give these guys my credit card info? NEVER

I think the "direct support" doesn't mean any support at all, but like, they can talk to a real person instead of going through automated support.

Whale tier: you can send one GPU per month to linux and he'll drop it on camera for free!

if there's a check mark tier on floatplane, then there needs to be a half check mark, which is just the check mark .PNG left side

Certain Facebook users with a particular status were getting direct support from Meta for issues on the platform; this conveniently terminated at the end of Jan this year.
I guess to pave way for the paid support.
So now I don’t get support anymore. Regular users have no way to get hold of a real person at Facebook for any meaningful help with an issue they face.
And individual user is just a rounding error on a rounding error so costs more to support than they get back I bet.

Should look at the support for star link. No phone number to call. Just 3-5weeks for a response for a support ticket. Even though they just sent there prices up more.

Motorcycle helmets are sometimes available in a medium/large size that is between medium and large to get a closer fit

Honestly, it's the direct customer support for me. I'm a writer and my readerbase is on Facebook. Yes, I'm older and my readers are, too. Not quite Boomers, but Gen-X. And they aren't going anywhere else. So I'll stay on FB as long as they do.
Now, Facebook doesn't have customer support. That's not an exaggreation. There's no direct way to get any support. Which is worsened by the fact that you can get penalized for the most hilarious stuff. Post a meme that's wrongly interpreted as being risque - get a day or a week of forced break or no posting allowed. You can appeal those meassures, but you are telling a bot to check if it was interpreting your original posting the right way. We all know how that goes. Plus, they even have dialed that down, claiming still that due to the pandemic, there's not enough capacity to address everything.
So, direct customer support and better visibility would and will definitely be worth 12 bucks a month for me. Not that I like it. Not that I think it's fair. I WILL make those 12 bucks back with even the slightest increase in visibility for sure. So, it's a business decision.
As for people like my readers - private persons ... I guess some of them who like to post memes and jokes of the more innuendo filled variety will probably also sign up. Just not being bothered by Facebook bigotry and bot-based small-mindedness quite as often or at least have a better way to appeal a stupid decision will be worth it for some. Which - I'd guess - is something Zuckerberg is very aware of. Looking at the decline of support options over the last 5-ish years alone, there's a customer base for that one feature alone. In combination with the forever present complaints of everyone about a decline in visibility, it becomes a deal.
(I personally agree with a decline in visibility, but not with the common notion that it's 'impossible to be seen' on Facebook. I understand THAT system, at least. You gotta make relevant content that gets engagement, which still IS promoted to people you're friends with as well as their friends and even others in your demographic/markting group. But the perception of the majority is that you are pretty much invisible, even to your friends, nowadays.)

"Extra-medium" is what a lot of people call _medium large._ Some people may call it medium-plus, with its polar being medium-petite.

I really miss LTT intros. The tune and the silly custom tagline were like a 3rd of the entertainment value for me. I'm always sad when serial content drops these established things, it feels like a loss of identity.

Even my grandma stopped using Facebook. The only reason she still opens it is for playing the bajillionth level of candy crush.

I've noticed the intro being absent from some videos and it makes me sad. It worked great to get more hyped up for the main part of the vid, and I love everything about both versions of it.

you did not mention that the tumblr checks can, at any given moment, all turn into crabs. THAT was the selling point.

There is zero support for users who have had their account locked, which also locks a business page. We've had our account locked out because of an employee re-posting a meme made from a television commercial, 2 years after the fact... on their personal page.
Many of these platforms have no actual effective support, unless you have big numbers in your bank account, or have political connections.

I'm tired, so when I read the title I thought it meant Meta was selling Facebook as an IP for $144, and to be honest my first thought was, "Shit that's a bit much isn't it?"

Can't wait for my blue checkmark on my blockbuster account

The irony is that Twitter Blue will probably end up being significantly more successful. I still don't understand why this is so expensive. Imagine if it was actually reasonable, like 50 cents a month; many millions of people would sign up for sure. . Too bad about payment processing fees.

Aw man...if Meta wants to charge for Facebook I'll drop facebook, I do kinda want to keep Instagram though =/

As a resident photographer for several places, a musician -- someone who self brands -- I would probably pay for it.

awesome video as always !

My Facebook-linked store has been broken on Facebook for over a year. I'll ironically have to subscribe for a month just to try and get it fixed.

Tumblrs important internet checkmarks are amazing. They do nothing and they're upfront with it. It's entirely to make fun of twitter. Plus you get twice as many as with Twitter for the same price

I lowkey thought he sold a company for $144 💀

Can we stop normalising subscriptions in general? Like most subscriptions imply that the app or service will be constantly improved, upgraded and new features introduced, but what are you ACTUALLY getting with things like Meta Verified or Twitter Blue??

I am surprised no one mentioned this, but I HIGHLY doubt it is "Direct Customer Support"
It is going to be a chat bot probably.

In my experience with Facebook, they don't have support for the user

Maybe a credit for the LTT store per month. That way you can save up for a backpack or screwdriver.

The only way I would get this is if it made the content I watch on Facebook ad free, and I still prob wouldn’t buy it. The literal only reason I have Facebook is to watch 1-2 streamers.

I called this 5 years ago if they charge everybody$2 to$5 mandatory they would have made a lot of money

Facebook just spent the last 3 years overstepping their bounds with moderation and now they’re asking for a subscription. I don’t even use my account anymore.

The only thing I use Facebook book for is old pictures 😂 i deleted all friends and locked it down. I'm just to lazy to download all the pictures on there.

6:36 Petition to call that “extra medium” warehouse product “Marge” (medium-large)

100 stars for $12 Stars are worth $0.01 what a bargain

I mean anything is possible these days really.
People think subscriptions are the norm, what happened to "I pay once, I (ACTUALLY) own it forever".
Lots of things are online, and you need a phone number and an email; the fast food restaurant down the street (paying nearly minimum wage) doesn't have physical applications.
When a big company wrongs its customers/equivalent, the solution is to blow it up on social media until the company apologizes; how many people actually support the competition?
Even crypto scams are making big bucks.
So there's bound to be some people out there willing to accept a dumb cash-cow idea (hint: they know they're the cow) and make it the new standard.

This tech companies are absolutely are stuck in their ways. If Twitter offered a $5 per month privacy package where it removed ads and data mining, I’d be tempted.

Yeah !! Just a little more time and Meta will start charging 0.1$ for each message on WhatsApp. 🤣🤣

I intellectually believe that subscription based social media platforms would be better personally and socially than the ad and data sale model currently in vogue.
But I also can't see myself paying for one.

3:38 Wasn´t it that a lot companies bought a Quest2 in the past on their facebook Account, cause it meant that you get premium support? So many of the headsets were bought for exact that purpose and never used? Would support John Carmack's claim that 50% of all headsets were used one time and then put aside.

Last time I checked, the actual total yearly value for your data is about $120 a year, so if you paid that much a year, you wouldn’t have to get ads

This will be the nail in the coffin for facebook. META killing their bank accounts right now and facebook income isn't enough to prop up Meta right now. So if facebook income drops heavily the company could go under thanks to the money invested in the Metaverse.

I understand if the subscription allows u to skip the line for customer service but being denied customer service for not sibscribing is crazy

Linus you sweet summer child, there is no Facebook support for normal users. My partner's Facebook account was hacked, and there was almost no support at all. The account was linked to an ad account at her workplace, and despite the ad account being behind an MFA wall they were still able to take it over. Support was absolutely shocking. No explanation was ever offered as to how it happened.

Facebook: 144$ to use Facebook
Also Facebook: But we’ll steal and sell your personal information for free !

If they made it so they don't automatically "fact check" or censor every single political post you make that facebook employees don't agree with then I might actually be slightly incentivized to pay the sub lol

Extra medium is a good name for the size between medium and large. Better than Medium Ti, Medium Super, or Medium XT video card makers use for their between range cards and the slightly better than the best like a soda and fries comparison would be just extra large before they started with super size stupidity and removed extra large from some menus. It is what it says, It is medium with a little extra that's not the next tier of large sized.
As for the topic. Nope wouldn't pay a penny even with no ads and I do not trust them with data collecting..

Pumped for Floatplane Beta!

Proactively adding a way to tip Instagram and Facebook creators. Essentially eliminating the effect of spamming accounts because legitimate accounts pay.
Those aren’t bad things.

It’s impossible to contact Facebook support currently

Give ppl reimbursible ltt credits, creates no waste and makes it easy for ppl to select merch they like. If they can't find anything or their financials are worst than your they'll get money back

Creative must think the whale or check marks provide a competitive advantage. BUT ONEDAY, NO! Everyone will have one and the playing field flattens once again.

"increased search visibility" really means that they will lower visibility for those that doesnt pay.

They really do underestimate how popular FB is in Europe ...

Lol, if this was Launched 10 years ago(and eliminated ads, I think it would have worked well. But now, it is on its way to my space land

The social media companies seem to have convinced themselves that they're a necessity that they can charge for and not something that's convenient. The moment it stops being convenient is when people stop going out of their way to interact with it.
Not to mention just how much of it nowadays is made to invite kids to join; so there's a large part of your demographic right there gone.
Still, I'm glad they're shooting themselves in the foot. I'm so sick of how the entire internet seems to take place on like 4 apps these days.

Ok but I'm in that range between large and medium and I would *absolutely* buy it labeled as "extra medium".

Is extra medium a call back to that episode of scrubs where Todd gives JD a banana hammock?

"Stars to tip users" is literally the EXACT feature from the Flipnote Hatena service on the Nintendo DSi. Who HASN'T Meta copied at this point?

Pay to use this service, and in return you’re still the product.

Speaking of LTTStore, your T-Shirt stock is wild right now, can't believe stock issues have been going on this long. Must be losing a ton of money on possible shirt sales.

I’m not a person who ever buys merch but I’d DEFINITELY buy a right to repair pin

Id pay for it IF it removed ads and would guarantee that i didnt get banned anymore.

I thought you meant Meta.
I would pay $144 for the entire company of Meta. That's a fair trade

In response to not wanting to make monthly merch because of trash.. if you do in any way, make it opt in only?