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X begins charging new users $1 a year in New Zealand, Philippines

bbc.co.uk

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Re: X begins charging new users $1 a year in New Zealand, Philippines

#51

Post by basisword »

lapcat wrote: post #34
threeseed wrote: post #21

This has nothing to do with bots. It's all about getting everyone to provide their credit card details for future revenue streams eg. micro-transactions. And also to give them a competitive advantage in the ad space e.g. allowing companies to target you based on your real life identity.

Except the plan will never work for mobile users who sign up via the App Store or Google Play Store. "According to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, Musk’s push to sign-up subscribers was very much intertwined with his quest to build an “everything app,” and Musk grew angry when he learned Apple doesn’t share credit card details of those who sign up with their iPhones." https://www.engadget.com/x-is-starting-to-charge…

Just finished reading the bio so I can clarify this a bit. Despite what it sounds like out of context the take away was that he did know the App Store rules but he was under the (wrong) impression a company of that scale could speak with Apple and get the data anyway.

Re: X begins charging new users $1 a year in New Zealand, Philippines

#52

Post by dEnigma »

horseRad wrote: post #17
dEnigma wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I paradoxically only really started heavily using Twitter when it seemed to decay under Musk (because I wanted be along for the fun ride). But I can hardly imagine that there could have been more bots before than there are now. Almost all my tweets are immediately liked by some catfishing bot and there are crypto spam bots under every slightly popular tweet.

As someone who reported tons of stupidly obvious spam/crypto bots pre takeover I'm genuinely puzzled as to people reporting _increased_ bots as I can spot maybe one every now and then. Maybe it's because I'm a passive user, but to me it's solved.

Interesting. It could be that I never noticed before because I wasn't as active (and have gained a couple followers in the meantime, thus becoming a slightly more attractive target). In any case it's now bad enough to make me reconsider using the platform at all (that and the promoted replies and tweets by blue checkmarks). Related to your remark about reports: my last few spam reports got the reply that the tweets didn't violate the "sensitive content policy", even though I reported them as spam, not sensitive content. So something seems to be broken about the report system now too.

Re: X begins charging new users $1 a year in New Zealand, Philippines

#53

Post by api »

lapcat wrote: post #34
threeseed wrote: post #21

This has nothing to do with bots. It's all about getting everyone to provide their credit card details for future revenue streams eg. micro-transactions. And also to give them a competitive advantage in the ad space e.g. allowing companies to target you based on your real life identity.

Except the plan will never work for mobile users who sign up via the App Store or Google Play Store. "According to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, Musk’s push to sign-up subscribers was very much intertwined with his quest to build an “everything app,” and Musk grew angry when he learned Apple doesn’t share credit card details of those who sign up with their iPhones." https://www.engadget.com/x-is-starting-to-charge…

Make life multi planetary? Nah.

Try to clone WeChat in the US but with more trolls? Now that’s important to the human future.

Re: X begins charging new users $1 a year in New Zealand, Philippines

#54

Post by ceejayoz »

prepend wrote: post #20
philipwhiuk wrote: post #11

I hope they're prepared for the wave of fraudulent card transactions.

Id expect they are. And that will allow them to shut off more accounts.

The people making those charges don't care about the accounts; they're using the $1 charge to test that the stolen card details work before going and buying a $500 gift card somewhere else.

The victim eventually does a chargeback, which are expensive and risk your merchant account.

Re: X begins charging new users $1 a year in New Zealand, Philippines

#55

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

basisword wrote: post #51
lapcat wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the plan will never work for mobile users who sign up via the App Store or Google Play Store. "According to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, Musk’s push to sign-up subscribers was very much intertwined with his quest to build an “everything app,” and Musk grew angry when he learned Apple doesn’t share credit card details of those who sign up with their iPhones." https://www.engadget.com/x-is-starting-to-charge…

Just finished reading the bio so I can clarify this a bit. Despite what it sounds like out of context the take away was that he did know the App Store rules but he was under the (wrong) impression a company of that scale could speak with Apple and get the data anyway.

TBH this highlights even more how out of touch they are -- too used to living in a bubble where the rich can get what they want and bypass rules that apply to regular folk.

Re: X begins charging new users $1 a year in New Zealand, Philippines

#56

Post by input_sh »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #32
raverbashing wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of bots are paying the 5$ verified account It's a non-issue And of course a lot of them have the same X logo or Elon's picture, because His Xcellence probably fired the thinking heads dealing with spam

I’m surprised he hasn’t asked his fanboys to volunteer to moderate. Reddit has volunteer moderation.

What do you mean he hasn't, I'd definitely classify community notes as a volunteer-based moderation.

Re: X begins charging new users $1 a year in New Zealand, Philippines

#57

Post by paulette449 »

threeseed wrote: post #21

This has nothing to do with bots. It's all about getting everyone to provide their credit card details for future revenue streams eg. micro-transactions. And also to give them a competitive advantage in the ad space e.g. allowing companies to target you based on your real life identity.

I'm embarrassed for Musk. He overpays for Twitter, mismanages it to a lower value, and is now panhandling for dollar bills to make himself whole.

Re: X begins charging new users $1 a year in New Zealand, Philippines

#59

Post by chadash »

prepend wrote: post #16
hliyan wrote: post #4

I worry that this may paradoxically increase bots, because now the price of legitimacy is $1 per year. Bot farms and shills will do the math.

It’s not the $1, it’s the identity linked to the charge. So now they can be blocked as well as traced back to the funding account. I once was in a charity sponsored therapy group and they had a $10 fee. I was annoyed as this was a pretty wealthy organization and the fee seemed discriminatory, or at least a hassle. I learned that it was just there to validate each participant. So I think this is just a filter to help…

I think for the therapy group there’s also an aspect of wanting people to have some skin in the game. If you give something away for free, plenty of people will take it. But as soon as you put a mild obstacle in the way, even if it’s a small payment, you’ll weed out the people who don’t really want to be there.

Re: X begins charging new users $1 a year in New Zealand, Philippines

#60

Post by [deleted] »

basisword wrote: post #51
lapcat wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the plan will never work for mobile users who sign up via the App Store or Google Play Store. "According to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, Musk’s push to sign-up subscribers was very much intertwined with his quest to build an “everything app,” and Musk grew angry when he learned Apple doesn’t share credit card details of those who sign up with their iPhones." https://www.engadget.com/x-is-starting-to-charge…

Just finished reading the bio so I can clarify this a bit. Despite what it sounds like out of context the take away was that he did know the App Store rules but he was under the (wrong) impression a company of that scale could speak with Apple and get the data anyway.

[deleted]
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