Elon Musk may flip the switch to make X — the social network formerly known as Twitter — an entirely subscription-based platform. Musk brought up the idea of charging all users of X/Twi…

I’m not sure if this is technically Technology news, but I can remove this post if it’s in the wrong community

Archive link: http://archive.today/3XM6s

Musk brought up the idea of charging all users of X/Twitter during a wide-ranging conversation focused on AI that featured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. “[We’re] moving to a small monthly payment for use of the X system,” Musk told Netanyahu, claiming that it is the only way to eliminate the problem of bots, as reported by Bloomberg’s Dave Lee.

Musk didn’t mention timing of his plan to charge X/Twitter users, nor did he say how much it would cost.

Musk, who also is CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has said X/Twitter ad sales have plunged 50% since he bought the company. “We’re still negative cash flow, due to ~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load,” Musk posted on July 15.

  • UrLogicFails@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
    40·
    1 year ago

    I know it is a popular sentiment that people should migrate to Mastodon, but I personally think people will migrate wherever the people they follow migrate to.

    With this in mind, I suspect Bluesky will be the platform to usurp Twitter; but with Twitter chasing off all their users in the near future, it may go to whichever platform is readily open at the time.

    I’m very curious to see if Bluesky or Spill open up when Twitter closes the door on its users. If not, Mastodon may have a shot at being the next large platform…

      • gregorum@lemm.eeEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        Dorsey more of a proto-Musk IMO. He went off to an island to live with cocaine and guns. He only came back recently to create another social network because he hates Musk’s guts. (Edit: I guess I was wrong, and he doesn’t hate Musk)

        Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty sure the guys fucking insane, but I also don’t think he’s as bad as musk or as hell-bent on destroying democracy. He’s just interested in making money to buy more cocaine and islands and guns.

          • gregorum@lemm.eeEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Are you sure? I know they used to be super friends, but I thought they had a falling out.

              • gregorum@lemm.eeEnglish
                4·
                1 year ago

                Hmm… either they made up, or I’m thinking of something else. I’ll take your word for it.

                Anyway, the rest of what I said stands. Dorsey may be bonkers (check out that Vice interview from a year or two ago), but he’s not even in the same league of evil bastards as Musk. He may be completely a self-interested billionaire, scumbag, but he’s not a literal fascist with Musk’s track record, nor is he actively stoking neo-nazi activity while personally interfering with an ongoing war in favor of our country’s greatest and longest-standing enemy.

                I think you’re giving Jack Dorsey a bit too much credit by calling him another musk.

                Edit: Although… he kinda was “Musk before Musk” if you know what I mean. Like I first said: proto-Musk.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
          5·
          1 year ago

          Governments switching away from Twitter won’t suddenly switch to bluesky after already having set up mastodon, and overall similar incentives (mostly the control that comes with self-hosting) exist for corporations though those don’t have an incentive to be early adaptors.

          Sure there’s always going to be a baseline presence of those types of users on basically all platforms having any kind of general reach precisely for general communication but if you are an architect and want to follow the building code department of the ministry of – who the fuck is responsible for that? dunno, in any case, no you won’t do that on bluesky. Why would they want to get burned twice by a platform when some state IT department somewhere runs software they can use for the purpose.

          • viq@social.hackerspace.pl
            0·
            1 year ago

            @barsoap
            Both government and corporation, having a choice between having 30k users be reached by them, or having 3M people be reached by them, will choose the latter.
            Most likely both government and corporation, having a choice between reaching 300k users and having to spend resources on maintaining an instance, and reaching 300k but not having to maintain an instance, will choose the latter.

            • barsoap@lemm.ee
              1·
              1 year ago

              The building code department isn’t interested in reaching the general public. Noone part of the general public the fuck cares about new rules regarding minimum distances between outlets and windows in new construction. They have their official journal which is replicated on the ministry’s web site and which they’ll gladly replicate to mastodon – but dealing with a foreign private company, its mod policies and whatnot nope, they really couldn’t care less.

        • smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de
          2·
          1 year ago

          Maybe I missed something in this thread but it seem like the point is “my friends would be there”? Like the same thing we hear over and over with every shit platform.

          I can now comment on Wordpress blogs from Mastodon, follow PeerTube channels, host it myself in my closet, BBC is on there, Flipboard joined, Tumbr said it’ll join, Facebook’s Threads said they apparently want too. I see goverments and parties there. Yet the argument is “people would be there”. No they won’t, look at the boring corporate logo, who would leave awesome community of animals for blue box? Or am I missing something?

          • viq@social.hackerspace.pl
            1·
            1 year ago

            @smileyhead There are social and technical issues. Discoverability / visibility accross instances is an issue. Jumping on people that they use CW wrong is an issue. Moderation is an issue.
            In that thread you have how those make minorities consider it too much hassle to be here.
            I’ve talked to an artist for whom those were too much hassle to be here. Both are happy on bluesky apparently.

            • smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de
              1·
              1 year ago

              Discoverability / visibility accross instances is an issue Is Bluesky somehow fixing this without centralized IDs?

              Other things are just who is using the network. And what must be said, is that all those toxic people would migrate to a new popular standard too! The point is that we should have standard for social media years ago. The mindset that the app you are using must be somehow tied to who are you interacting with is something created by centralized platforms. I don’t care if people I hate are on the same network, I join a server that matches my values or create my own and everyone’s happy.

      • UrLogicFails@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        From what I can tell, it’s still on the invite system; but I haven’t been keeping a close eye on it. I figured if it opened up, I would hear about it online.