Paying to access X’s tweets and other features can go behind a paywall. Elon Musk is thinking about it. So, prepare yourself to pay for social media.
A payment system is the best solution to keep the bots away from X, formerly Twitter. Elon Musk has said it during a discussion Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel. The owner of Space X and Tesla, Elon Musk, said, “We’re moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the system.”
The BBC has tried to contact X for more information on this suggestion. However, no statement has been received till now. The news reports say that there is no confirmation of this statement. So, no one knows whether it is an off-the-cuff comment or the owner of Space X has some plans behind it. However, Elon Musk is very clear about bots and fake accounts on X and thinks that getting rid of these people is charging for verification.
Musk took over Twitter last year, and since then, he has been trying to incentivize users to get enhanced services after paying a small amount. X Premium is the premier example of these enhanced services. With this service, the users can get more features. For example, subscribers can increase their platform visibility and write longer posts. However, another reality is that users still prefer X for free.
We can observe clearly that the company is looking for financial interests in making X a paid tool. However, Musk is interested in tackling bots and finding paid services the best solution.
Elon Musk said, “A bot costs a fraction of a penny” to make he said. “But if somebody even has to pay a few dollars or something, some minor amount, the effective cost to bots is very high.”
Currently, X Premium charges $8 for a month. However, you may have a different price outside the United States. The world’s richest man finds these rates cheaper and considers them the best for tackling bots. He said, “We’re actually going to come up with a lower tier pricing. So we just want it to be just a small amount of money. This is a longer discussion, but in my view, this is actually the only defence against vast armies of bots.”
