Another change may occur on the social media platform X (previously known as Twitter), which may not sit well with current users.
According to TechCrunch, during a recent interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sept. 18, the owner of X, Elon Musk, said that sometime in the future there is a possibility that users on the platform will have to pay to continue to use the website.
The discussion between Netanyahu and Musk was primarily focused on artificial intelligence (AI) technology and its regulation. Yet, Musk said the company was “moving to a small monthly payment” for it to access the website. The decision was to combat the platform’s issues with bots.
“It’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots,” Musk said, “because a bot costs a fraction of a penny—call it a tenth of a penny—but even if it has to pay…a few dollars or something, the effective cost of bots is very high.”
He added that whenever someone wanted to create another bot, they would need another new payment method.
Yet, when news of the intended plan got out, X users were not thrilled and made sure to air their grievances on the platform.
Well this sucks. If this site goes paid thats bye bye Twitter.
I honestly dont know if I can afford yet another service, and even then, isnt it odd to pay to make a tweet? pic.twitter.com/4Hc1TQon5s
— AstralLeo_VT/ 2.0 Coming Soon / 🐻💜 (@astralleovt) September 20, 2023
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Elon Musk says Twitter, now X, is moving to monthly subscription fees and has 550 million users https://t.co/LQvLqQ0jBb
— miki (@mikikimasakiki) September 19, 2023
Musk is right that subscription fees would kill off bots.
But X would also lose the vast majority of human users because people have become too accustomed to social media being free. They won’t pay.
And losing the human users would make X worthless.https://t.co/byEzOtYJgd
— ライオン Lion (@LionBlogosphere) September 19, 2023
The Tesla owner did not give a specific payment price or even when this new payment system might start. It has been widely reported that the platform has been losing money since Musk purchased X.
X users can currently pay $8 a month or a yearly subscription of $84 for access to X Premium (originally called Twitter Blue). Musk mentioned placing the social media platform behind a paywall when he initially purchased Twitter.
If Musk goes through with the plan to charge a monthly subscription price, then there may be a great exodus from the platform.
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