Elon Musk Suggests He Will Charge All X/Twitter Users a Fee to Be on the Platform
variety.com
Elon Musk may flip the switch to make X -- the social network formerly known as Twitter -- an entirely subscription-based platform.

Elon Musk said he will charge all X/Twitter users a fee to be on the platform. He suggested that such a change would be necessary to deal with the problem of bots on the platform.

“It’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots," said Elon. I can’t believe that this is the only solution he can think of.

Dealing with bots would be Elon Musk’s responsibility, considering he’s the only one profiting significantly from X, not us. Elon Musk steals our data and censors each of our posts, now he even expects us to pay to clean up the mess he created.

Plus, the problems with X go beyond just bots. The algorithm and programming decisions are negatively impacting user experience and manipulating people’s minds.

We want a town square where everyone is free to have & voice an opinion. I do not believe we have to pay ”a small monthly payment” for such a place, especially in a country that should value these freedoms & suppressing ideas.

  • Sagrotan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Why do I have to see the face of this idiot almost daily? I don’t use that shit X and never will. What’s the appeal? I even could understand TikTok somehow, but X/Twitter? Where’s the informational value in these completely useless posts there?

  • rglullis@communick.newsEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    For those that are saying “no” because it’s Musk: would you be willing to pay to your account on Lemmy, Mastodon, or any other social network that you happen to use?

    Let me be specific: I am not asking if you donate or contribute to any server. I am asking if you’d sign up to a social network that required payment from every user as a measure to avoid spammers and to keep the service running.

    • Meowoem@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      01·
      1 year ago

      No because it would exclude all the interesting people, I’d much rather donate to keep a door open for all.

      • rglullis@communick.newsEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        it would exclude all the interesting people

        Are all “interesting people” so cash strapped that they wouldn’t be able to afford a $10/year membership?

        Anyway, what if I told you that my instance provides “group-based” billing? You could, e.g, get a 10-account package for $5/month and give access to 9 other people there.

        I would still try to come up with some form of vouch or sponsorship-based system, where the paying members get to approve non-paying members if they have a backing sponsor.

        donate to keep a door open for all.

        Donation-based instances are not sustainable. You can see that already with Mastodon. They used to be able to get enough funds to even support upstream projects, now they are invite-only. Turns out that “keeping the door open for all” makes the operating costs rise faster than the revenue from donations.

        • Meowoem@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          01·
          1 year ago

          Interesting people barely have time to pop onto Twitter every now and then, they’re not going to bother if it costs money

          And I guess we’ll see which system ends up bearing fruit, I think we’re already seeing the capitalist walled garden model falter, I suspect your more collectivist model won’t have the momentum to replace it but while the commons might trip and start with a dozen different stumbles the sheer force of its ever growing ubiquity will carry it through.

          Especially as hardware continues to get cheaper and software more efficient, hosting a few thousand users on a federated server is already fairly trivial, its only going to get easier the more hurdles are removed through innovation and tech creep.

  • mochisuki@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    A monthly fee seems idiotic but yes please do it! Please!

    That said I think a $5 signup fee on Mastodon or Lemmy that is not refunded if you get banned would seriously help stop bots. They only make pennies per bot and if you make their cost even minimally painful the economics fall apart.