Elon Musk Wants You To Pay for X (Twitter) — More Free Services You’ll Soon Have To Pay For
Written by
Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy
Edited by
Cory Dudak
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The best things in life are free as the saying goes — except if you’re an X (formerly Twitter) user. Elon Musk recently floated the idea that he plans to make X a paid platform in order to combat bots.
Musk addressed this in a livestreamed discussion with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sept. 18.
“I’d say maybe the single most important reason that we’re moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the X system is it’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots,” Musk said, according to a transcript of the discussion. “Because a bot costs a fraction of a penny, call it a tenth of a penny. But if somebody even has to pay a few dollars or something, some minor amount, the effective cost of bots is very high.”
Yet, not everyone is sold on the idea.
“X — formerly known as Twitter — frequently delivered a shot of dopamine when I tweeted,” said Peter Cohan, associate professor of management practice at Babson College.
“Since he acquired the company, Musk’s appetite for hate speech has turned tweeting into a waste of time. There is no way I will pay for it. X and all the other services — such as dating apps and news and sports websites — are giving people a gift by asking them to pay. The gift? They must choose whether spending time on these services is really worth paying for. If not, they can get back the time they were wasting,” added Cohan.
Other Platforms May Move To Paid Subscriptions
But X is not the only platform which is considering the move to becoming a paid service. For instance, many dating apps and entertainment and sport websites are now charging their users.
Social media platforms have traditionally relied on advertising for revenue — but with the rise of ad-blockers and bots, this approach is becoming less effective, said Ryan Hamilton, creator and founder of entertainment app Universimm.
“Paid subscriptions, like those used by Netflix and Spotify, are emerging as a more viable option,” said Hamilton. “Convincing users to pay for social media services they’ve been using for free is challenging, but Elon Musk’s move to implement fees for using X could set a precedent for other platforms to follow.”
Hamilton noted, however, that this development has led to a significant division in user experience, with individuals being inundated by excessive advertisements and endless scrolling through irrelevant content.
“To ensure sustainable growth for entertainment services, some form of monetization is deemed essential,” he said.
Here are some apps and websites that have already taken that route:
Match.com: The popular dating site is free, that is, until you want to message someone. According to Forbes, Match offers free, standard and premium plans, which range from $20.11 to $40.41 per month, and you can add on to your subscription with several paid features.
Instead, Mashable recommended using Tinder, OKCupid or Hinge.
Snapchat: While Snapchat is free, Snapchat+ (rolled out last year) is not. “As a Snapchat+ subscriber, you can get exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features! These features enhance and customize your Snapchat experience, enabling you to dive deeper into the parts of the app you use the most,” the website declares. According to TechCrunch, there are 2 million paid subscribers, and the subscription costs $3.99 a month.
Facebook and Instagram: Meta launched its Meta Verified feature, which just like X’s checkmark, gives you a tick. It costs $11.99 when you subscribe from the web (Facebook only) and $14.99 when you subscribe within the app, according to Meta.
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