Instagram Plus would let users view others’ stories in secret — for a fee

Instagram is adding young features — for those willing to make up.

The societal media political platform is testing an Instagram positive subscription that, for a monthly fee, allows users to extend the life of their story posts, "spotlight" their stories to put them at the front of followers' feeds and see how many people have rewatched their stories.

It also lets subscribers view other users' stories in secret and make multiple friend lists to determine who gets to see each of their stories.

The move is part of an industry-wide shift away from services that are free and equal for all users — a shift that some say is wearing people out.

"It feels like almost wherever you turn, you're seeing a subscription pricing model," said Hanna Horvath, a financial planner and author of the newsletter Your Brain on Money. 

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Horvath says it's part of the "tierification of everything," from streaming services to airlines, where companies layer on paid tiers while "degrading" the lower-cost, or free, "base tier."

"Maybe they're offering you a choice because companies know that people have subscription fatigue … but that base layer is just so unpleasant or has so few features, or ads, that people will be willing to pay that premium price," she said. 

Meta did not say where it's currently testing Instagram Plus, but users have shared screenshots of the new trial features in Mexico, Japan and the Philippines. In Mexico, it appears to cost roughly $3 Cdn per month.

It follows in the footsteps of multiple other platforms.

LinkedIn was an early adopter of premium subscription tiers, and paid features have become the norm with dating apps like Tinder, Bumble and Hinge.

Elon Musk limited messaging and post visibility from Twitter's non-paying users when he bought the platform and introduced paid subscriptions in 2022 before rebranding the platform as X. 

Last year, Snap announced Snapchat+, offering exclusive features for paid subscribers. 

And Meta has said it's also exploring paid options for Facebook and WhatsApp, in addition to Instagram. 

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Because a fraction of higher-income consumers do the majority of spending, Horvath says companies tend to cater to that segment of people, and may not be overly concerned by the "price-conscious" consumers who complain about the free model but aren't willing to pay for more. 

"To put it quite bluntly, I don’t think they really care about the quality of that service, or the fact that people are becoming annoyed about how expensive everything's gotten — because there are always people that are willing to pay those premium prices and those premium subscriptions," she said.

Brett Caraway, acting director of the University of Toronto's Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology, says the Plus features may be successful as a "cream-skimming" of "hyper-engaged" top users who really want extra visibility on the platform. 

But he says they could also be risky. Giving certain users the ability to view others' stories undetected, for example, could create a sense of "lateral surveillance" that might upset and alienate non-paying users.

It could also create negative perceptions of users who pay. After Musk's Twitter takeover, those who got blue checkmarks to indicate they were paid subscribers were mocked by users who stayed on the free version.

Caraway says platform owners are running a "balancing act" trying to satisfy customers and advertisers while also increasing revenue. He says this has led to the current trend of paid features to supplement revenue streams from mining users' personal data and hitting their feeds with targeted ads.

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The problem with ads, he says, is the platform can get overrun with commercial messages and become "spammy."

Caraway says streaming services like Netflix got people used to paying for a service again, "rather than just looking at an advertisement, feeling like they were getting it for free." 

Ironically, he says, after social media "undercut" traditional print and broadcast ad models, some consumers are wanting to turn back the clock.

"I'm hearing a lot of people complain about having to pay for Apple TV, plus Netflix plus Amazon Prime, plus this, plus that, plus that," he said. "It's like some people are wishing they could just go back to the old cable television model, where you were just paying one subscription fee."

Digital Writer

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