Elon Musk plans to charge all X users a “small monthly fee,” and the social media platform will no longer be free in the near future.
In a live-streamed conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the owner of X suggested that the social network may no longer be free in order to address the issue of bots on the website.
“It’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots,” Musk said late on Monday.
“The billionaire added that a bot costs a fraction of a penny—call it a tenth of a penny. However, even if it has to pay a few dollars or something, the effective cost of bots is very high.”
The notion of charging everyone on X is not a new one; Musk originally mentioned it last year.
The company presently charges $8 per month for its X Premium members, who can edit posts, see fewer advertising, create lengthier messages, and have their rankings in search and chats prioritized.
During the conversation, Musk stated that X had 550 million monthly users and generates 100-200 million posts per day.
Musk did not say how many paid subscribers the company currently has.
Twitter mentioned 229 million mDAUs (monetizable daily active users) in its most recent public earnings report in Q1 2022.
Source:IANS