X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, will begin charging new users $1 a year to access key features including the ability to tweet, reply, quote, repost, like, bookmark, and create lists, according to a source familiar with the matter. This change will go live today for new users in New Zealand and the Philippines.
Roughly 20 minutes after this story published, X’s Support account confirmed the details, writing that “this new test was developed to bolster our already successful efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount. It is not a profit driver.”
Starting today, we’re testing a new program (Not A Bot) in New Zealand and the Philippines. New, unverified accounts will be required to sign up for a $1 annual subscription to be able to post & interact with other posts. Within this test, existing users are not affected.
This new test was developed to bolster our already successful efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount. It is not a profit driver.
And so far, subscription options have proven to be the main solution that works at scale. — Support (@Support) October 17, 2023
The company published the “Not-a-Bot Terms and Conditions” today outlining its plan for a paid subscription service that gives users certain abilities on their platform, like posting content and interacting with other users. This program is different from X Premium, which offers more features like “Undo” and “Edit” for posts for $8 a month. Given the company’s tumultuous reputation under Musk, some users have voiced their hesitancy to turn over their credit card info.
X owner Elon Musk has long floated the idea of charging users $1 for the platform. During a livestreamed conversation with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, Musk said “It’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots.”
Shortly after the announcement, Musk tweeted that you can “read for free, but $1/year to write.”
“It’s the only way to fight bots without blocking real users,” Musk wrote. “This won’t stop bots completely, but it will be 1000X harder to manipulate the platform.”
X CEO Linda Yaccarino was asked last month onstage at Vox’s Code Conference about how going to a full subscription model on X will affect revenue, something that is now going live to users today. Yaccarino answered at the time, “Did he say that or did he say he’s thinking about it?”
I can only approve of people paying for services they use. It isn’t free to run. But there are several things to consider:
Another surge on mastodon? Countries, cities, public organisations should put up their own mastodon like EU, BBC and Germany have.
I was more thinking it’s to test the waters.
A buck is affordable to most everyone who has the means to access Twitter.
Of course next year it’ll be Twitter++ subscriptions for 20 bucks a month, as they phase out the 1 dollar tier.
I never cared for Twitter, and watching Musk’s spin on it has been hilarious as someone with a long history in corporate IT.
Pre-edit: At the moment I’m refusing to refer to it by a
tween edgelords name~ Musk’s name for it.Dutch government put up an instance as well; e.g. this is the handle of the agency for road and waterworks. @rijkswaterstaat@social.overheid.nl
There’s a separate one for the city of Amsterdam as well
And $1/yr today could easily be $10/yr next year and $100/yr after that… all depending on what the Musky Man feels like on that day.
I don’t mind paying for services, but I now have 20 different services. Each one is trying to extract the maximum amount of money out of me while giving me a minimum in return.
I also accept that those services are not free to run, but realistically, these companies aren’t just trying to cover their operating costs, they’re trying to further line the pockets of executives and shareholders.
And its never enough for them. I could give Twitter $100 a month and they’d still sell my data for a few extra pennies. I could give YouTube an unlimited supply of servers and bandwidth and they’d still show just as many ads.
We will never get the cost living under control until this corporate greed is addressed because no matter how much money we pay people, there’s an army of psychopaths ready to milk them of every cent.
So fuck em. They can have an extra dollar when they can prove it will actually end up in the pocket of an employee. Otherwise, the richest man in the world can fund his own little reactionary pet project.
I would also welcome decent micropayments (maybe digieuro?), so that you wouldn’t need to subscribe, but could pay 0.045€ for something without it being unfeasible because of fixed transaction costs.
That’s incompatible with corporate greed. They will look at a billion transactions for $0.05 and start thinking “What if each of those was $0.50? Or $5.00? Or $50.00?”.
Without a regulating force (such as laws or consumer power that isn’t just neoliberal lies) , it will always grow to absorb every available dollar it can.
And realistically, charging people 0.045€ for the service they actually use won’t make them nearly as rich as charging people $50 each month for the $3 dollars they use.
They’ve already done the maths to prove it. It’s why it’s never happened.