The online platform X, formerly Twitter, could develop into a paid service for all users. Elon Musk, who bought Twitter a year ago, is testing restrictions for free users.
Even those who have previously used the short message service X, formerly Twitter, for free could be asked to pay or experience restrictions in the future. This is what initial tests of the online service indicate.
As X announced, restrictions for free users will initially be tested in New Zealand and the Philippines. New users of the service can only publish contributions and quote or redistribute contributions from other users for a fee of one US dollar per year.
If you want to continue using the service for free, you can only read posts, watch videos and follow others. According to X, the company wants to use the measures to protect the platform against automated bot accounts and spreaders of spam messages. The results of the tests will be announced soon.
More costs than benefits?
Whether the new tests by restricting user activities can really stop the spread of bots on the platform is controversial among experts. The dpa news agency quotes IT security expert Marcus Hutchins, who says he cannot think of any bot activity that could be stopped with the fee of one dollar per year. The step is more likely to cost the platform money.
“Spammers will use stolen credit cards – and the cost of chargebacks will be higher than subscription revenue,” said Hutchins at rival service Threads.
Free use should become less attractive
The possible innovation in the former Twitter is part of other changes with which X owner Musk wants to generate income for the service and at the same time make free use less attractive. Since April, the blue checkmark symbols for verified profiles have been the former “Twitter Blue”, and are subject to a charge.
A reading restriction was introduced at X in July. Since then, unverified free users can only read 600 tweets per day. Anyone who is a paying customer has ten times as many tweets, 6,000, available. Musk justified this measure by saying that they wanted to prevent an “extreme accumulation of data” on the user side.
Reaction to declining advertising revenues
The tech billionaire, who is also the boss and major shareholder in the electric car manufacturer Tesla, bought Twitter almost a year ago for around $44 billion and later renamed it X. Twitter’s new leadership and changes made to the platform in recent months had led to a decline in advertising revenue.
Many companies apparently fear negative influences on their brands if they continue to advertise on the online service. Musk had confirmed several times that the Since Twitter launched in 2006, the platform has always been free and financed through advertising.