Elon Musk May Charge Everyone To Use X, Which Would Be A Horrible Move
Don't do it, Elon!
In a recent interview, the X (formerly, Twitter) CEO said that he is contemplating charging everyone- not just premium subscribers, to use the social media platform.
Musk suggested the monthly payment for all X users while speaking with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a live-streamed event on the social media platform. When Netanyahu asked Musk how he plans to combat the app's growing-bot problem, Musk suggested the only way to do it would be to charge real users.
"The single-most important reason 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," Elon said. He added that by charging people the bot accounts wouldn't nearly be as many because each one would have to register with a separate payment plan. So what he's saying is that the humans get screwed because of the robots. Something tells me we are going to hear that a lot more in the years ahead.
DOUBTFUL PEOPLE WILL PAY FOR X
Some free advice for you, Elon like the free platform you currently give all of your users - charging a monthly payment would be a horrible idea and would almost guarantee the platform begins its descent into irrelevance. Nobody wants to pay for something they used to get for free.
X currently charges $8 a month for the platform's "Premium" subscription which includes longer tweets, more engagement as well as the ability to post longer videos. It has not worked to the company's benefit as an analysis back in May showed that only around 650,000 users had signed up for the premium service out of the 230+ million that use the service every single day.
The underlying issue is that Elon purchased, his own doing by the way, the platform at a massively higher premium than he ever should have at $44 billion via a leveraged loan. He obviously needs to recoup his payments and ad revenue is not coming in at the levels he hoped. Musk is finding out that because he is now in direct competition with the mainstream media as far as ad revenue and sponsors goes, he has become their favorite person to hate on.
And although no one is heading over to Mark Zuckerberg's Instagram Threads app, to think that the overwhelming majority of current X users will also pay a monthly fee may be a bit of a gamble for Musk that may not turn out in his favor.
Elon Musk may start charging people for Twitter X service. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
X NEEDS MORE REVENUE
What made and still makes X unique is the breaking news aspect with real-time engagement on topics. Anybody, anywhere can comment or post about what they are seeing or reacting to. But many of those people will leave if they have to start paying for something that used to be free. It's the simple mindset of it.
It's unclear if Elon is definitely going to begin a monthly charge for all users to use the platform. He also hasn't say how much it would cost but did say it would be cheaper than the $8 that Premium subscribers currently pay.
The fact that not even a million of the more than 230+ million even pay for the current Premium service at $8 shows just what users think about paying for the platform. A monthly charge for everyone would be terrible for the platform.