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X/Twitter will begin charging new users $1 a year to access key features

fortune.com

11–20 of 181 posts

Re: X/Twitter will begin charging new users $1 a year to access key features

#11

The paywall on Fortune that is telling me to pay $1 monthly to see the article is so, so sweetly ironic

I don't think it's ironic. Paying for access to content at least makes logical sense, paying for the privilege to provide content to a platform is ridiculous.

Re: X/Twitter will begin charging new users $1 a year to access key features

#13

This is going to kill engagement. 90% of people don't care enough to pay for that and any sort of barrier will lower engagement. Twitter/X is going to be use this as a way to fight spammers and bots but those accounts never had a problem paying or using stolen money.

> This is going to kill engagement.

Maybe! The people who are still left must really like Twitter. I think charging a token amount to limit who can post from a Sybil attack mitigation perspective might actually be reasonable, and it’s exciting that someone who doesn’t care if they lose is willing to perform the experiment.

If you’re not willing to pay at least a dollar to post, maybe your content doesn’t have any value to the audience or platform. I’d pay $1 to keep posting here (probably more! But don’t tell the YC folks).

Re: X/Twitter will begin charging new users $1 a year to access key features

#15
post #4

I know people are down on the-social-networking-platform-formerly-known-as-twitter, and I have no skin in the game, I gave up on social networking about a decade ago, but I think this is the model to beat. Forever the FOSS world has said, "if you do not pay for the product, you are the product". Well, here is X trying to make a product you pay for. I do not know their new policy on tracking/ads/spying but even if the…

Mostly seconded. Another upside is this really does put a much larger cost to bots and problem accounts. Even $1 a year is a big deal if you've got an army of 5000 bot accounts (something pretty trivial in this environment).

I'm all for things like Kagi doing this RIGHT and supposedly not selling all my data, but I've argued that companies like twitter charging for access is the path to a healthier environment.

Oh and to add, earlier this year I would've bet money that if Musk started charging, it'd be WAY more. $1 a year is a very smart starting point for a whole slew of reasons, and will let them tier out their services.

Re: X/Twitter will begin charging new users $1 a year to access key features

#16
post #10
post #4

I know people are down on the-social-networking-platform-formerly-known-as-twitter, and I have no skin in the game, I gave up on social networking about a decade ago, but I think this is the model to beat. Forever the FOSS world has said, "if you do not pay for the product, you are the product". Well, here is X trying to make a product you pay for. I do not know their new policy on tracking/ads/spying but even if the…

>Well, here is X trying to make a product you pay for. No, this is an attempt to have it both ways. To do data collection / data brokerage and ALSO charge users for the service.

Exactly this.

I would be entirely supportive of a model where a social network (not social media) was established with modest annual fees with the condition that the usual privacy violation and targeting and engagement hacking wasn't going to happen.

But that's clearly not what this is.

Re: X/Twitter will begin charging new users $1 a year to access key features

#17
post #4

I know people are down on the-social-networking-platform-formerly-known-as-twitter, and I have no skin in the game, I gave up on social networking about a decade ago, but I think this is the model to beat. Forever the FOSS world has said, "if you do not pay for the product, you are the product". Well, here is X trying to make a product you pay for. I do not know their new policy on tracking/ads/spying but even if the…

Users that pay $8/month for X Premium still get served ads and have the same ToS for tracking/spying as everybody else, I don't think the $1 crew is going to fair any better

Re: X/Twitter will begin charging new users $1 a year to access key features

#18
post #2

I’ll never use this crap but $1 a year is smart. People will sign up for it because it’s nothing and that gives twitter a foot in the door for price hikes later.

In what world does raising the price from free to $1 lower the barrier for signing up?

Re: X/Twitter will begin charging new users $1 a year to access key features

#19
>Musk said “It’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots.”

With so many of these billionaires and CEOs it is becoming impossible to tell whether they are transparently lying or complete idiots. Just admit you need the revenue and you want people to put a card on file to lower the bar for future financial transactions. Charging for a service doesn't eliminate bots, it just shifts the financial break even point a little. If that is truly the only solution Twitter has, that is a huge indictment of his and his team's intelligence.

EDIT: To expand on why this clearly isn't targeting bots, this only applies to new users. It therefore does nothing regarding all the bots currently on the platform. It is clear that they don't want to chase off existing users which applies to both real users and bots.

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