A side-by-side composite image of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.
Mark Zuckerberg (left) and Elon Musk both are now charging customers for a service that used to be free.
  • Meta and Twitter are officially in the subscription business now.
  • The social media companies are chasing subscription dollars as ad revenue declines.
  • In doing so, they risk letting their platforms become relevant to a select few users willing to pay.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, which perhaps explains why Meta is pressing ahead with its latest haphazard idea: making users pay.