Facebook launches paid online events

The service will give businesses, creators, educators and media publishers the ability to earn money from events hosted on the platform. Facebook says page owners can now create an online event, set a price, promote the event and collect payment, all in one place.

For now, the service is accessible in 20 countries, including the US, UK, Mexico, Brazil, India and Singapore, among others. No African countries have been added yet. It will be available to pages that qualify for Facebook’s partner monetisation policies. The social network said it would not take a cut of any revenues from paid events for at least the next year.

“In June, we saw live broadcasts from Pages double compared to the same time last year, largely attributed to broadcasts since March”, Facebook said. “By combining marketing, payment and live video, paid online events meet the end-to-end needs of businesses. Pages can host events on Facebook Live to reach broad audiences, and we’re testing paid events with Messenger Rooms for more personal and interactive gatherings.”

Paid ticketing is not common on major social and video streaming platforms. It has tended to be restricted to the smaller livestreaming companies, while it has been more about free streams on bigger platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitch.

With the new service, Facebook joins Spotify and Epic Games in the fight against Apple’s 30% revenue cut via the App Store.

“We asked Apple to reduce its 30% App Store tax or allow us to offer Facebook Pay so we could absorb all costs for businesses struggling during COVID-19,” Facebook said. “Unfortunately, they dismissed both our requests and SMBs [small and medium-sized businesses] will only be paid 70% of their hard-earned revenue.”

Last week, Apple and Google booted Epic Games-owned game Fortnite from their app stores for bypassing them completely. Apple was the first to boot Fortnite, then Epic Games sued Apple in response.

In March 2019, Spotify filed an antitrust complaint in the EU against Apple. It says Apple’s control of the App Store robs consumers of choice and hinders rival services like Spotify in favour of Apple Music.