- Elon Musk stated X, previously Twitter, might be rolling out a paywall to all its customers.
- Musk says the transfer was important to assist take care of bots on the platform.
- The billionaire didn’t give specifics however stated X would cost “simply a small sum of money.
Elon Musk says his social media platform X, beforehand generally known as Twitter, might be introducing a paywall for all customers.
“The single most important reason that we are moving to having a small monthly payment for the use of the X system, is it is the only way I could think of to combat vast armies of bots,” Musk stated throughout a stay stream on X with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.
Musk informed Netanyahu that having a fee system and prioritizing premium customers’ posts would assist reduce the affect of bots.
“Because a bot costs a fraction of a penny, call it a tenth of a penny, but even if it has to pay a few dollars or something, some minor amount, the effective cost of bots is very high,” Musk stated.
Musk stated he believes the paywall is important if X is to take care of bots on the platform.
“We are actually going to come up with a lower tier pricing. We want it to be just a small amount of money,” Musk stated. “It’s a longer discussion but this is actually the only defense against armies of bots.”
This is not the primary time the billionaire has thought-about having a paywall for all X customers.
Musk had mentioned the concept with one in every of his advisers, enterprise capitalist David Sacks, final yr, in line with a report from the tech e-newsletter Platformer.
Musk has launched a flurry of adjustments to the platform since he purchased it in October 2022.
Besides renaming Twitter to X, Musk changed the platform’s legacy verified program — the blue ticks that confirm the authenticity of well-known personalities — with the Twitter Blue subscription program in March.
The adjustments are a part of Musk’s makes an attempt to place the platform on a path towards profitability. In July, the billionaire stated in an X put up that the corporate was in a troublesome monetary place.
“We’re still negative cash flow, due to ~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load,” Musk stated in his July put up. “Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else.”
Representatives for X didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from Insider despatched exterior common enterprise hours.
