Claims that Facebook will start charging money, instead of being a free social media platform, have circulated for years now, and 2023 is no exception. Numerous posts on Facebook by multiple users (just type “Facebook charging fees” or “Facebook charging this summer” on the site) typically assert that it will begin requiring users to pay a subscription fee for their accounts to remain private or that Meta is thinking about having multiple subscription tiers. So then is there any legitimacy to these claims, or is it just a hoax?
Will Facebook charge money in 2023?
No, there is no evidence that Facebook will begin to charge users money to use its platform in 2023.
The vast majority of the claims saying this is going to happen are false and attempt to trick users into reposting them, saying that they need to post the message for their account to be remain free. Some even go so far to say that this news had been broadcast on TV or try to scare users into thinking that Facebook can obtain your private pictures and info if they don’t copy and paste the message.
Rumors that Facebook would force users to pay have been around for a long time, dating all the way back in 2009, according to Snopes. Since then, there have been variations of this hoax throughout the years. It’s important to note that a substantial chunk of Facebook’s profits rely on users seeing ads on its platform, as noted by The Verge, so cutting its userbase by introducing user fees to access the site would go against that monetization model.
That said, this doesn’t mean that Facebook isn’t trying to monetize the site further. In the same article on The Verge, John Hegeman, Meta’s VP of monetization, stated in August 2022 that the company is looking into expanding the site’s paid features over the long haul. He said: “On a five-year time horizon I do think [paid features] can really move the needle and make a pretty significant difference.” So Facebook is still looking to find way to get users to pay more, but just not by forcing users to pay a fee to use the platform.
