Meta has announced that Instagram has introduced a subscription fee in Australia, which lets creators charge followers to access their content.
The new feature will be similar to OnlyFans – if the creator decides to create a subscription account, their content will be hidden behind a paywall and only those who pay a month fee will be able to access it.
“Fostering meaningful connections with fans becomes harder as creators grow, so we are giving them the tools to own their own “space” (a “one stop shop”) with their most engaged followers within Instagram,” Meta said in a statement on Friday.
“(Creators) can share exclusive content and interact, all while earning predictable, recurring revenue.
The new initiative was rolled out earlier this year for some US creators, and has just opened up to Australian users and influencers.
“Earlier in the year in January, subscriptions were made available to an initial group of 10 US alpha creators,” the statement read.
“By June 2022, we reached 1000 monetising creators. In July, we rolled out phase two of subscriptions by adding subscriber chats, home, posts and reels to the existing subscription features.
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“Now, we’re announcing open access in the US, and expanding via invite-only to more countries including Australia, UK and Canada,” the statement said.
In more positive news for casual Instagram users, the platform is reportedly currently working on another feature that lets users add songs to their profiles.
Mobile developer and reverse app engineer Alessandro Paluzzi recently shared his findings on Twitter, which he found after combing through the platform’s latest development code.
The update appears to allow you to pick a song to add to your profile, something that could represent who you are, your current mood, or your favorite song at the moment. This feature would be similar to MySpace’s ability to add songs.
“#Instagram is working on the ability to add a song to your profile,” he tweeted.
#Instagram is working on the ability to add a song to your profile 👀 pic.twitter.com/zX2jIlZLzc
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) October 17, 2022
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