X (Twitter) to soon begin charging $1 annual subscription in order to tweet and interact.

Next move must be to charge users deleting their accounts $1. And Elon can sell your data to make more money.

  • Ech@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I’m gonna call it. This is an (obvious) attempt to squeak in monetization for everyone on twitter that is as unobjectionable as possible, and once everyone’s locked in the price will increase, and tiers will be introduced, etc etc., and it’s going to work. Nobody still on twitter is gonna care about $1/year to keep access. They’ll lap it up and thank Musk for the opportunity to be fleeced.

    Musk could still fuck it up by being overly greedy and ramping up too much too fast like he tried to do last year (or this year? I’ve lost track), but I’d say this has reasonable odds of working out.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      for everyone on twitter that is as unobjectionable as possible, and once everyone’s locked in the price will increase, and tiers will be introduced, etc etc., and it’s going to work.

      I’m not so sure about that. The internet is littered with companies that gave away their product for free hoping users would pay for premium features. When they didn’t and the companies then had to charge a minimum entry fee for everyone, people dropped the product. There’s a barrier to putting in your credit card. Lots of people just aren’t interested.

      • HeartyBeast@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        There are also a whole lot of governmental, health and official bodies where putting through an invoice is a real pain in the bum. It forces a decision whereas previously if had been a simple business as usual process

      • Ech@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        You’re definitely right about that being the general result to these sorts of moves, but I don’t think it’ll apply as harshly to this situation. Like I said, anyone still on the site has already faced numerous insults and abuse at the hands of Musk. They want to be there despite all of that, or maybe even because of it. I do think a $1/month or something higher would be pretty likely to fail, but $1/year is such a low-level ask and will gently push the users there past the barrier to where the price can be raised higher later.

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          $1/year is such a low-level ask and will gently push the users there past the barrier to where the price can be raised higher later.

          The amount being asked isn’t the barrier I’m referring to. Twitter could be charging one penny, and they’d still lose this particular group. Consumers have been burned by entering a credit card for a low or free trial only later to discover sudden fees they couldn’t get refunded. The only protection is to not give your credit card.

        • HeartyBeast@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Not really. I was working with the communications department of a large local authority in London recently. They use Twitter/X as a broadcast medium for public snnouncements via Hootsuite. I don’t think they had noticed any disruption at all. Similarly with Public Health and the NHS

    • GenEcon@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Musk wants Twitter to become a ‘platform for everything’. Having a payment system in place everyone uses already is key for that.

      Not going to say that this is a good idea, but thats the rational.

    • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Honestly I want this covered. Elon is a toddler who’s never been told “no” and he can’t stand not having all the attention on him. As long as he’s throwing his toys and sticking his fingers into light sockets, burning every bridge he’s ever built bought to keep himself in the headlines, I don’t mind spurring him on. Let everyone see how smart he is.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Unfortunately, if you’re a U.S. taxpayer, you’ve given him a lot of your cents whether you want to or not in the form of subsidies for Tesla and SpaceX.

      • foggy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Some of my cents. I wouldn’t say a lot of my cents.

        I’m doing mediocre financially but it’s not that bad.

      • dannoffs@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        We can just organize on open platforms like mastodon instead!

        Yeah we’re fucked lol

        • Augustiner@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I mean, idk how it is after the musk take over but twitter used to be a legitimate tool for political organizing. Iirc they used it a lot during the Hong Kong protests and it was a driving factor during the Arab spring. Free communication for the masses helps in these situations, especially in an otherwise state controlled media environment.

        • gohixo9650@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          twitter is/was not doing that on purpose but twitter had been used for political organizing and quick news spreading during mass protests in multiple countries. There are cases that it was the main means of communication of the people protesting bypassing censorship or downplay of the local news agencies.

      • Ech@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        What’s stopping him from just pulling the plug if that’s his goal?

        • Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz
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          1 year ago

          He lost so much money, and he is badly in debt. His wealth is still on bloated Tesla stock, which he cannot sell without destroying the company value. Business genius.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    Why?

    That’s such a bizarre amount of money it’s not enough to dissuade scammers and it’s not really expensive enough for anyone to care about, except in principle.

    He really is a massive twat isn’t he.

    • Ech@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      and it’s not really expensive enough for anyone to care about, except in principle.

      That’s why. Because once people spend some money, they’ll be less likely to object to paying more later.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        I’m not really opposed to spending money to access social media in general (although even before Musk took over, Twitter in particular could get lost) but if I pay money they have to promise to not advertise at me, or sell my data, otherwise what am I paying for?

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Why?

      Two reasons:

      1. He wants Twitter to be his ‘everything app’ and the next step in that process is making it a bank.

      2. He wants to sell people’s personal data.

      • Happenchance@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Full name. Address. Phone number. Credit Card details.

        He wants them on his platform asap.

        Once that hook catches it’s hard to take out.

      • prole@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        He doesn’t need to charge anything to sell people’s data though? They certainly already do that, no? If anything, this would just cause people to leave, meaning less data to sell.

          • prole@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            So you think Elon is making people pay for Twitter so he can sell their credit card numbers?

            • ZhaoYadang@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Yes, absolutely. It’s not just a credit-card number, it’s personal data tied to your entire Twitter history. He’ll sell your personal data to advertisers and assorted crooks who can then target you based on what you tweet, search, view, and so on.

                • pastabatman@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  He’s not literally selling credit card numbers. If he introduces a “Pay with X” service, then Twitter has a ton of new info about purchasing habits to link with Twitter activity that will make the platform more desirable for advertisers. The $1/year is to get the payment info in there so users are more likely to choose it out of convenience. It might also reduce bot activity, which is how it’s being pitched at the moment.

  • the_q@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’d be real cool if folks would just stop using Twitter. You can live without it, y’all.

    • StarManta@lemmy.world
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      For once, the money is genuinely not the point, from any point of view.

      The stated purpose, and I think it will accomplish this, is that no one running a bot network will pay this for their bots, so spam reduction.

      The likely ultimate purpose is to have the user’s payment info saved to reduce friction for giving Twitter money later on.

      The problem though is that they’re adding this friction on to the beginning, so as a result I think the most prominent actual effect is going to be 80% of free users (real ones) are gonna kill it then and there.

      • orcrist@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        What are you talking about? Will the spammers pay a dollar to reach an audience of 20,000 or 50,000 or a million people? Of course they will.

          • markr@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Right. So to get boosted or to spread disinformation will become more expensive. the operating costs for bot farms will go up, squeezing out small players. Boosting and propaganda won’t go away, it will just be controlled by governments and oligarchs.

  • alienanimals@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Downvote Musk spam.

    The billionaire doesn’t need your help ensuring him and his businesses stay in the 24 hour news cycle. Don’t be a useful idiot.

    • azulavoir@sh.itjust.works
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      It’s funny how this is becoming spam of its own right.

      Between schadenfreude and people genuinely wanting to know what to say when they tell other people to stop associating with Elon, I can see valid reasons to keep this in the news cycle.

      • alienanimals@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Someone posts spam

        Me: “Please stop posting spam”

        You: hUr DuR, aCtShUaLlY yOuRe ThE sPaMmEr

        This is exactly the type of useful idiot that helps billionaire Elon Musk stay in the news every single day.

  • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    X would like to collect a very large amount of payment information from a lot of users to then store in their incredibly mismanaged infrastructure.

  • misterwu@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I bet it will go like this:

    1. First, it’s 1$ a year.
    2. If X survies this, they will eventually change it to 1$ a month
    3. Wait a year or so
    4. Increase to 6$ a month
    5. ???
    6. Profit

    Keep in mind that this prediction requires enough stupid people to actually stay on X and pay