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Since Meta launched its subscription programmes, only a very small share of its user base has enrolled. The company has reported roughly 15 million active and trial subscriptions so far. Against its 3.6 billion daily active people across its family of apps, that works out to well under 1% (around 0.4–0.5%). India alone has hundreds of millions of users on Meta’s platforms. WhatsApp alone is estimated above 500 million, with Instagram and Facebook also very large; so the potential user base is enormous. Meta still derives about 97–98% of its revenue from advertising. It uses user data to target ads rather than selling the raw personal data itself to advertisers, but the business remains heavily dependent on personalised advertising. n the EU, its attempt to offer an ad-free option through a “pay or consent” model was found non-compliant with the Digital Markets Act. Regulators fined the company, and later adjustments have continued to face criticism that users still lack a genuine, low-friction alternative. It is hard to see how Meta can close a large revenue gap from reduced or restricted advertising solely through voluntary subscriptions, especially as privacy and competition rules tighten further. Models used by some Indian platforms appear more flexible in certain respects. For example, if ad revenue is strong, a platform can more easily introduce revenue sharing for creators (as Meta, YouTube, and X have done to varying degrees). X’s earlier revenue-sharing programme was widely viewed as inadequate by many creators, and the newer replacement is narrower still. For ordinary users, a system that lets people earn rewards and then use those rewards for temporary ad-free periods (such as seven days) can feel more user-friendly than a pure paywall. This is what Vync has. I am relatively new to Vync, so I may not have every detail right, but the general idea of rewarding engagement and giving users a practical way to reduce ads seems preferable to many. It is quite possible that, over time, more people in Western markets will start using Indian-built social platforms that offer different trade-offs around privacy, monetisation, and user control. The way Indian teams are building various social media apps reminds me of the early days in the US when social media was gaining momentum. Some apps died, some were merged, and some high-potential ones were acquired by larger companies. Facebook acquired WhatsApp and Instagram, and Microsoft acquired LinkedIn. A similar pattern is visible in India as well. My purpose in writing this is to identify potential winners among these Indian social media apps that could later list on the SME segment to raise funds, so that those following the developments can ride along, invest early and make a profits on the way. Keeping an eye on such potential winners creates that opportunity. I wish I could identify the potential winners early. Vync seems to be one candidate worth watching. Nyburs’ pitch is quite different from what many users appear to want in practice. The public is treating Nyburs more like X, but that does not match what Nyburs wanted or planned in its business model. Among the newer Indian options, Vync currently feels like the closest alternative to X so far.