Meta Paywalling Possible Accessibility Feature For smart glasses, report says

Ben Lovejoy writes for 9to5 Mac today about a report from The Verge’s Sean Hollister on Meta paywalling what could be an accessibility feature, called Conversation Focus, for its Meta Glasses. The change is purportedly retroactive to glasses already sold.

The feature, which rolled out to customers last winter, is described by Meta as “[using] the open-ear speakers on your Al glasses to amplify the voice of the person you’re talking to,” adding users have the ability to “hear the amplified voice sound slightly louder, which will help you distinguish the conversation from ambient background noise so you can stay tuned into the moments that matter” while also saying users are able to “easily adjust the amplification level by swiping the right temple of your glasses or through your device settings to match the volume of your environment.”

According to Hollister’s report, Meta has limited usage of Conversation Focus to only three hours per month unless users pay up for a Meta One Premium subscription for $19.95 a month. When reached for comment on this policy, Lovejoy said Meta noted in response the limitation currently applies only to Conversation Focus.

As Lovejoy rightly notes, to paywall an ostensible accessibility aid, is “unacceptable”—especially considering Conversation Focus functions on device. Meta’s smart glasses indeed are popular with the Blind and low vision community, and to have to pay $20 for what may well be empowering technology feels downright sleazy. In a broad scope, this story highlights the institutional disparities between Meta and, as Lovejoy also mentioned, Apple. Whenever Apple’s glasses competitor hits the market, none of the product’s accessibility features will be paywalled or rate-limited. No accessibility feature on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS, or watchOS is pay-to-play because doing so would belie the point—and Apple’s values—of accessibility in the first place.

By gatekeeping Conversation Focus, Meta undercuts its messaging on accessibility.