Why is Meta offering cheaper and simpler "pay or consent" in the UK?
Meta announced today the introduction of a cheaper and simpler than in the EU version of “pay or consent” (subscription for no ads) for Facebook and Instagram for UK users. This follows Meta’s discussions with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which issued a guardedly positive statement about the development.
There are two key differences between the UK offer and the one Meta implemented in the EU:
Price: £2.99 ($3.99) in the UK vs €5.99 ($6.99) in the EU (more on mobile).
In the UK the choice is binary: subscribe or consent to personalised ads. In the EU, Meta was pushed by regulators to offer a third option: less personalised ads (free-of-charge).
I covered the EU developments extensively, including the European Commission’s recent DMA decision against Meta (see the summary in my notes from a recent conversation with Eric Seufert). Here, I’m not going to give the full background and I’ll comment just on the two features that distinguish Meta’s UK and EU offerings.
Why can Meta offer a binary choice in the UK, without the free-of-charge “less personalized ads” option?
In response to regulatory pressure—under EU GDPR and EU DMA—in November 2024, Meta made changes to their “pay or consent” offering in the EU: they added a free-of-charge “less personalized ads” option (while also reducing prices). In the EU, users are presented with a two-step choice flow where they first choose between paid and free, then can opt for less personalization. If they choose less personalization, then they also get occasional non-skippable ad breaks.
Meta, I think correctly, sees the requirement of the third choice as an overreach not based in EU law (they reiterated that in the UK announcement). It looks like the ICO implicitly agreed with Meta that such a requirement doesn’t follow from the GDPR. (Despite leaving the EU, the UK still has substantively the same GDPR as the EU).
Moreover, given that the UK is no longer in the EU, the EU Commission’s argument that the EU DMA requires the third option independently of the GDPR is irrelevant in the UK.
Why is Meta charging less in the UK?
In their announcement, Meta didn’t directly explain why the price is lower in the UK than in the EU. My interpretation is that this reflects that the free-of-charge “less personalized ads” option in the EU is not as economically valuable for Meta as either subscription or serving personalized ads. So, it makes sense that without offering the third choice, Meta can offer a better price.
Meta and the UK ICO negotiated the price point. As the ICO announced:
During the course of our engagement with Meta, it significantly lowered the starting price point at which users would be offered a subscription. As a result, users in the UK will be able to subscribe at a price point close to half that of EU users.
Will many users choose to pay even this lower price? Probably not many. As I wrote in my analysis of the EU Commission’s DMA decision against Meta:
The Commission highlights that Meta knew, or should have known, that an overwhelming majority of users would choose the free option. They point to academic studies showing low willingness to pay for privacy and Meta’s own internal documents from 2023, which predicted uptake for the SNA option would be extremely low (less than 1%)—a figure that closely matched the actual outcome. (...)
It was obvious to everyone that most users wouldn’t pay, and that only the most valuable advertising targets would. Taking that into account in pricing strategy was basic competence for Meta’s monetization team. I’d suggest the low uptake simply shows that users want social media funded by personalized advertising.