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Twitter, now X, moving towards becoming paid for all users
- X, formerly Twitter, could soon become a subscription-only service.
- That means everyone will have to pay to use the platform.
- Elon Musk announced the developments during a livestream on the platform.
Elon Musk has made another surprising revelation regarding the future of X, formerly Twitter. The latest announcement adds to a growing list of unpopular decisions taken by the Tesla, SpaceX, and X Corp. leader regarding the social media platform. Speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a live-streamed conversation, Musk said that X is gearing up to become a paid platform for all users.
According to the billionaire entrepreneur, “a small monthly payment for use of the X system” is the only way to deal with the “vast armies of bots” on the platform.
“Because a bot costs a fraction of a penny — call it a tenth of a penny — but even if (a bot maker) has to pay a few dollars, the effective cost of bots is very high,” Musk said. While he did not reveal how much a monthly subscription for X would cost and how it would differ from the current Premium plan, Musk added that bot makers would need to register a new payment method for each bot, thereby restricting them from setting up swaths of fake accounts on X.
Would you pay to use X, formerly Twitter?
It’s unclear when precisely the new subscription plans for X would come into place. Musk has a history of jumping the gun as far as new feature announcements are concerned. As per the data he divulged during the Netanyahu chat, X now has 550 million monthly users who put out up to 200 million daily posts. That number will undoubtedly see a decline if and when X becomes a subscription-only service, with users flocking to alternatives.