Elon Musk says Twitter, now X, is to charge all users subscription fees
GuardianSep 18, 2023
The Facts
Elon Musk, owner of X, formerly Twitter, floated the idea of a monthly fee for users during a talk he had Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Musk, who’s also in charge of Tesla and SpaceX, said a fee could help to fight “vast armies of bots” on the platform.
The Spin
Narrative A
AI is getting smarter and it’s becoming more difficult to prevent bots from overwhelming the platform and amplifying hate speech. By charging a small fee, Musk can combat the bots while at the same time, he can open up a revenue stream that will make up for the dip in ad revenue. This is the right move in a challenging tech market.
Narrative B
Charging a fee might eliminate a large swath of bots from X, but it will also scare off multitudes of users. There are too many competitors for users to turn to now, so this is the wrong time for Musk to suddenly deploy a paywall. In the face of personnel cuts at X as well, this is a risky move.