Elon Musk indicated that he might transition X (formerly Twitter) into a fully subscription-based social network during a conversation focused on artificial intelligence with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on September 18.
“[We’re] moving to a small monthly payment for use of the X system," Bloomberg quoted Musk telling Israeli PM Netanyahu while stating that it was the only way to eliminate the problem of bots.
Musk said making someone pay a few dollars to use the service made “the effective cost of bots" very high and would require bot operators to use a new payment method every time they wanted to create a new one.
He said a bot costs a fraction of a penny to operate under X’s current system, which offers both free and paid tiers. Hence it’s the “single most important reason" he said to shift to a monthly payment system, reported Bloomberg.
Musk suggested implementing a small monthly fee for X/Twitter users as the only effective way to combat the problem of bots. While Musk didn't specify the timing or the exact cost of this subscription, he mentioned that X currently boasts 550 million monthly active users who generate between 100 million and 200 million daily posts.
According to industry news site Platformer, Musk previously mulled the idea of putting Twitter entirely behind a paywall in internal conversations. The billionaire, who also runs Tesla and SpaceX, pointed out that X's ad sales have declined by approximately 50% since he acquired the company, leading to negative cash flow due to the drop in advertising revenue and a heavy debt load.
“We’re still negative cash flow, due to ~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load," Musk posted on July 15.
Currently, X offers a subscription program known as X Blue (formerly Twitter Blue) starting at $8 per month. This subscription provides users with various benefits, including verified check-mark status, post-editing within a one-hour window, a 50% reduction in ads, prioritised post rankings in conversations and search, increased character limits for posts (up to 25,000 characters), and the ability to upload longer videos (up to 3 hours or 8 gigabytes in size).
Subscribers also have the opportunity to earn a share of advertising revenue, primarily from ads displayed in responses to their posts, reported Variety.
After Elon Musk closed the $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter in October 2022, he took control of the company and carried out significant layoffs, reducing the workforce by approximately 80%. Musk subsequently appointed himself as CEO.
Musk appointed former NBCUniversal sales executive Linda Yaccarino as CEO of X earlier this year. Since her arrival in June, Yaccarino recruited a team of new sales executives. However, Musk has remained actively involved in the company's product and technology teams.
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