Elon Musk has indicated that X, formerly known as Twitter, is preparing to charge all users for accessing the platform.

The X owner said erecting a paywall around the business would ward off the bots, or automated accounts, that have become a bugbear for Musk.

Speaking in a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, the Tesla CEO and world’s richest person suggested that X was going to charge its user base. Currently, Twitter only charges users for its subscription service X Premium, which offers perks such as a verified account checkmark and costs $11 a month in the US for iPhones and £11 in the UK.

  • TheLordHumungus@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Haha, no one is gonna pay to use social media. I don’t use Twitter but you would never get me to pay for absolute garbage brain rot. I’m already on lemmy for that and it’s free.

  • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Let me guess. Paying a subscription will not mean the end of ads.

    I have been wondering for a while what he would have to do to finally crash twitter, I think this may be it.

  • Tygr@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I think it’s one of his best ideas he’s ever had. I fully support this move and everyone else should as well.

    What a wonderful, genius, innovative idea. Such brilliance. I think he should also keep ads on there as well.

  • athos77@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    The X owner said erecting a paywall around the business would ward off the bots, or automated accounts, that have become a bugbear for Musk.

    Idiot manchild proudly breaks something he knows nothing about, complains when it doesn’t work as expected, news at eleven.

  • Fades@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    what is this clickbait bullshit??? I’ve seen multiple articles yet the wording is always ‘floated the idea’, but from the headline you could infer it’s an official announcement.

    fuck modern ‘journalism’

  • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.fmhy.net
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    1 year ago

    It’s an interesting thought, but he misses the #1 problem with online subscriptions- sign-up friction.

    If you could just push a button and instantly be charged something, an awful lot of people would do it.
    But when you go from $0 to $0.01, you will lose 99% of people, because most people can’t be bothered to fill out a form, put in their credit card number, etc. Even if the amount of money involved is absurdly small, it’s not the price, it’s the friction.

    Now if he integrates the app with Apple Pay or Google Wallet that will help, a little. But only a little.

      • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.fmhy.net
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        1 year ago

        Assuming the cost is stupid low like a $1/year, low enough that almost nobody will think ‘is this really worth it?’-- every required click or tap after hitting ‘subscribe now’ costs you 25-50% of the people who are still there.

        Make it 1 penny for a lifetime subscription. Just having to thumbprint for Google Pay will still cost you 25-50% of the people who hit subscribe. Make it a credit card form with card/exp/cvv/address/tel# and your purchase rate is down to maybe 1% of the people who hit subscribe.

  • MrBusinessMan@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    It’s surprising that in all these years, nobody came up with this innovation to make Twitter more profitable but in just a short time period, Musk was able to figure it out. Goes to show why he’s the richest man in the world!

  • Noxy@yiffit.net
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    1 year ago

    I think it’s bigger news that that fuck is meeting with that other fuck Netanyahu. What the fuck business do those two fascist scum have with each other?

  • alienanimals@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Literally every single day we have idiots doing Musk’s PR work for free.

    Downvote Musk spam. The billionaire doesn’t need your help ensuring his businesses stay in the 24 hour news cycle.

    • QuarterSwede@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s really working against him at this point. A lot more people that were looking to buy his products and services aren’t anymore.

  • orphiebaby@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Yep, this is the final nail in the coffin. Most people will just stop. Good job boosting the Mastodon community, Moron Musk.

    • QuarterSwede@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Honestly, my hot take is that Mastodon is already better than X. Less toxic, more feature rich, more flexible, and built to be decentralized.