Last month, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta became embroiled in a major controversy after Wired found that it had discreetly included facial recognition tech in the software of its lineup of popular smart glasses.

The camera-equipped spectacles had already become a privacy lightning rod, with users secretly recording strangers, often without their consent — earning the spectacles the pejorative nickname of “pervert glasses.”

Now, in addition to their already steep price, Meta’s AI-enabled glasses will become even more expensive, thanks to a $19.99 a month subscription that will “rate limit” their sought-after AI features, as The Verge reports.

Meta is launching a new Meta One Premium subscription that will be required for anybody trying to get the most out of their pricy eyewear. While the company insists that owners technically don’t have to shell out $20 a month, even premium subscribers will be locked out after using 15 hours of “Conversation Focus,” a feature that amplifies the voices of people you’re talking to, per month. Without a subscription, owners are restricted to just three hours of the feature a month.

At a glance, you might think the development yet again highlights how quickly access to AI compute has shot up in price, in soaring costs that tech giants are starting to pass along to their customers.

However, as The Verge points out, Conversation Focus doesn’t require any internet connection to function, meaning that it doesn’t actually have to connect to a remote server to process data.

In other words, Meta appears to be squeezing money out of power users by arbitrarily charging them more for a device they already bought.

“Does Meta have some secret licensing deal with another company that costs it money every time a person uses Conversation Focus?” The Verge‘s Sean Hollister asked rhetorically. “Failing that, the rate limit sounds utterly bogus.”

Zooming out, Meta’s AI efforts have run into major roadblocks, from rock-bottom morale among employees to chaotic management.

By making its smart glasses — which, despite all of the controversy, have been selling in the millions — even more expensive for power users, the company could be hamstringing its one successful AI project.

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