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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

#61

Post by afavour »

mg wrote: post #26

They charge for "the ability to tweet, retweet, like posts and reply to posts." It will be very interesting to see how this turns out. Obviously, there is no value in the ability to publish your thoughts. You can do that for free on an ever growing number of platforms. But Musk seems to bet on a private attention economy. Where even private individuals are willing to pay for attention. Not only businesses. Has this b…

> Where even private individuals are willing to pay for attention

Twitter Blue is already this. When you get verified your replies and posts are boosted in others feeds. Just one of the reason the quality of the app has bottomed out but yes: I think there is an audience very willing to pay for that.

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

#62

Post by kshacker »

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.

I guess Musk does not talk to Zuck

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

#63

Post by rvz »

andsoitis wrote: post #15
FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #8

Ah yes, lets trust Elon Musk with your credit card info. What a joke.

People buy Tesla cars online.

…and using their Starlink on a subscription plan which their plan is linked to their card numbers. Oh No /s

Time to cancel because Musk made lots of techies cry over a bird site.

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

#64

Post by matthewdgreen »

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…

> 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.

Do people on HN actually think this will work? I'm genuinely curious. Knowing everything we know about the underground economy of sockpuppets, bots and carders - combined the (un)willingness of real people (especially in relatively poorer countries) to pop out their credit card during signup for a social media site - do folks really think this will produce a high-quality stream of new signups?

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

#65

Post by mrweasel »

wlesieutre wrote: post #6

Aren’t tiny payments like this a favorite for people testing if stolen credit cards are working?

They are, credit card thieves will happily spend more than $1 to verify a credit card. Not acting on such transactions if how you get an angry call from VISA.

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

#66

Post by bluescrn »

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.

It might cut down on anonymous harassment/abuse if people can't create anonymous accounts and hide behind VPNs and throwaway email addresses.

But it's not going to make any difference to anything if it doesn't apply to existing accounts.

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

#67

Post by freeone3000 »

johncolanduoni wrote: post #39
SXX wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If X or Twitter or whatever accept payments via Apple Pay or Google Pay then there is absolutely no way to track anything. It's those services simply dont provide any information back to ex-Twitter. Also there is number of services like privacy.com that allow to hide real card details. And even if person is using real card then payment process have absolutely no way of knowing anything except those few last numbers o…

When performing this kind of verification, you can easily (and usually do) block cards from services like privacy.com by looking at BIN codes. I also don’t think spammers can get large numbers of unique DPANs from Apple and Google Pay since that involves a cryptographic exchange between your device and Apple/Google with involvement from your issuing bank. Also most payment processors provide some sort of key that let…

You can get a ton of DPANS from Google Pay simply by logging in with a different Google account.

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

#68

Post by ffwszgf »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #55
basisword wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s not like there’s no precedent for this. Look at all the rules WeChat was able to ignore due to their size and influence. I assume Elon expected a similar treatment for Twitter.

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

#70

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

I think that's a good way to reduce bots but I also don't think Musk is an honest person.

What is the ratio of junk emails to junk carrier mail? The reason there is so much electronic spam and scams is because the cost to blast these out at scale is essentially $0.

Carrier mail is also traceable. Payment systems add traceability to something like X.

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