Big Tech has been creeping into upcharging for basic functions for a while. Google makes additional tech support part of its One subscription, whose main selling point is cloud storage. Apple, too, has turned privacy and security into luxury products: For example, it only encrypts the text messages you send to other people also using (expensive) Apple products.
This is bad because security and account service are not niche issues for Big Tech products. Frustration about regaining access to hacked Facebook and Instagram accounts is the No 1 tech problem we hear about from readers at our Help Desk.
Meta’s net income last year was $US23 billion, mostly made off our personal data. Protecting us is a cost of doing business.
Meta’s notoriously bad account-recovery systems hurt people such as Jonathan Williams, 58, of Cocoa Beach, Florida, who reached out to Help Desk. A hacker recently took over his Facebook and Instagram accounts, linking them to a different email and putting a selfie of somebody else on top of his holiday photos. He told me he spent over 30 hours clicking through Facebook support pages and YouTube tutorials to regain access - all to no avail.
“It was like the perpetual motion machine of not being able to get anywhere. You cannot get a hold of a human,” he told me. “I have never had such a feeling of utter hopelessness in my life.”
So what does Williams think about paying Facebook $20 per month to get a human? “I think that royally sucks,” he said. “They make ungodly amounts of money.” (To be clear, the new subscription couldn’t even help Williams because you have to be able to access your account to sign up for it.)
A Meta spokeswoman told ..
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