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.
Well, if that doesn’t kill the site, I genuinely don’t know what will.
It’ll be the final nail. Traffic to the site will plummet because the vast majority of users will not want to pay and search engines like Google will no longer be able to index links to tweets, which of course will drive away the remaining advertisers. This is another disastrous move in a relentless string of bad moves by big brain musk. I have to admit that it really starts to look like he’s doing this on purpose. Anyone with more than 2 brain cells should see this coming, even an idiot like musk.
You’re putting a lot of faith in the idea that the guy’s brain isn’t prokaryotic.
Looks like Elon Musk and John Riccitiello are trying to see who can run their company into the ground the quickest.
Long live mastodon. And bluesky too, when they finally open up and stop with the invite codes.
$11 for iPhones. L M A O
LoL
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.
PayPal? Venmo? Just as ubiquitous and already part of his vertical integration.
Assuming the cost is stupid low like a $1/year, low enough that almost nobody will think ‘is this really worth it?’-- every required click or tap after hitting ‘subscribe now’ costs you 25-50% of the people who are still there.
Make it 1 penny for a lifetime subscription. Just having to thumbprint for Google Pay will still cost you 25-50% of the people who hit subscribe. Make it a credit card form with card/exp/cvv/address/tel# and your purchase rate is down to maybe 1% of the people who hit subscribe.
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I think some Twitter drama can be news. However, this really isn’t. It just Musk taking over the air waves like Trump did. Always keeping himself in the newscycle.
Who gives a shit
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My theory is that someone has unflattering evidence of him on Epstein Island and other such things. I think those evil mob forces have him by the balls and they want Twitter killed subtly since the left organizes there and other countries have organized revolutions against authority there. So his job is to kill it and make it look like he just fumbled it. I think the only thing he regrets is whatever it is he did that gave people the power to blackmail him.
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/s?
Maybe someone else took the horse.
He’s narcissistic enough that he can never admit to having regrets.
Oh boy, now I get to pay to give Elon my dumb thoughts. Sign me right the fuck up!
DEITY$ help anyone I know that starts paying for Twitter. I was ridicule them mercilessly.
If all 330 MAUs paid this, Twitter would
netgross $3.6bn/month.Crucially, they absolutely will not.
Not only that, it’ll create a vicious cycle where engagement drops to the point where the people who still post on Twitter (politicians, reporters, celebrities, etc) no longer bother with it, thus leaving much less content for paying users, with the end game being that Twitter is the place where shithead tech bros and neo-Nazis talk to each other and pretty much nobody else.
Just as nature intended.
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Not a chance he is going to get the value up to $44B.
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I am finding it pretty easy to say, personally.
Torching the brand goodwill alone is a mistake that a 2nd year MBA student would mock you for.
Well, for the sake of context let’s note that we are two people talking about it on Lemmy, for free, with no corporations involved.
Whatever is next for Musk, I think if centralised social media needs to turn a profit then it’s probably not going to remain a central fixture of online society forever.
I mean I’m deleting it. I only have it because articles/friends/etc. have a link with something relevant. I only look at it out of convenience, not because it’s the only source. I am more than happy to take the extra step to Google whatever people were trying to show me moving forward. Though I imagine this will also have a chilling effect on the amount of Twitter links I am sent any given month.
Obviously it depends on the price, but maybe 10% of a free userbase will be willing to pay. The problem is, that userbase is coming to the platform mostly for rapid news and celebs. Will it still be the best place for rapid news with a 1/10th of the userbase? Will celebs want to stay on the platform when their reach is reduced to 1/10th? I think this likely just starts a death spiral that substantially shrinks the userbase.
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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.
Poor Elon, the man is probably losing sleep over twitter, or x, or whatever the fuck he wants to call this far-right nazi sympathizing website
Do it. Mastodon will be ready.
You gonna catch this one, Mozilla?
