Meta Is Rethinking Subscriptions on Its Smart Glasses

If there’s one way to rub people the wrong way, it’s introducing subscriptions where there previously were none. Meta pulled that very agitating lever earlier this month by announcing plans to start “rate limiting” its smart glasses. As quickly as it introduced that soft paywall, however, Meta is putting it back in the bag—at least temporarily. According to The Verge, Meta is pausing its plans to add rate limits to a feature called Conversation Focus, which uses AI and the smart glasses’ microphones to help you better hear someone you’re talking with. For full context, a Meta spokesperson makes it clear in a statement to The Verge that subscriptions are not being ruled out entirely—there are still plans to paywall certain features down the line—but its plans to start with Conversation Focus have been paused, and for good reason. Starting the subscription plan with Conversation Focus was a strange choice. For one, the feature works offline, meaning there’s no burden on Meta’s servers for using it. That makes a “rate limit” for power users odd at best. As I pointed out earlier this month, Conversation Focus is a tool that’s likely to be used by people who are hard of hearing, even though it’s not explicitly marketed as an accessibility feature. It’s worth mentioning that since the planned rate limits on Conversation Focus were announced, Meta has been sued by a group of employees who say it used AI to target people on medical, parental, and family leave for layoffs—emphasis on the medical part. That’s to say that, optically, this may not be a great time for Meta’s Conversation Focus subscription even if it’s not explicitly an accessibility feature. Meta tells The Verge that its rate limits are being introduced in an effort to subsidize hardware, but whether we’d see reduced prices on smart glasses with tons of subscriptions in them is anyone’s guess. For now, anyone who uses Meta’s smart glasses can look forward to more agitating news down the line.