alt Hacker News> doesn’t have to cost more than the ad-supported ARPU
I'll state up front that I'm not much of a socialist, so I realize opinions will vary, but it seems crazy to regulate something so frivolous as a social media site to the point of setting its prices. If people don't like Facebook, their ads, or their pricing, simply not using it is not a life-crippling suggestion the way "don't use the Internet" is.
So I'd support you on regulating broadband ISPs waaaaay before setting the prices X or FB can charge for meme-related services.
I'm not much of a socialist either, and I wish that social media was frivolous enough that I didn't see their regulation as a reasonable proposition.
The problem isn't access to memes, it's that for various categories of services/interactions, Meta (and presumably WeChat and/or others in other locales) properties effectively are the internet. I've seen all of the following use social media services as their sole method of communication or online presence: amateur sports teams/leagues, gyms, local governments, government agencies, parent/school groups, local service providers (barbers, farmers' markets, restaurants, etc.), online classifieds, community food boxes.
The fact that Meta has intermingled its meme factory with its hosting of the informational/communication platforms for a wide array of local groups/organizations/businesses is something they chose to do, and I'm not willing to accept the excuse of "we make a lot of money from our ad-serving brainrot algorithms so we couldn't possibly charge less than that amount of money for access to the non-algorithmic features on which we've gotten people hooked."