this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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Technology

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Elon Musk Suggests He Will Charge All X/Twitter Users a Fee to Be on the Platform (variety.com)
submitted 1 year ago by UrLogicFails@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
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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.

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[–] xtremeownage@lemmyonline.com 47 points 1 year ago (6 children)

So, I am starting to really believe his goal is to just drive a stake into the heart of twitter.

Either that, or he is trying to prove a point regarding something.

I don't think there is any possible way, he is so dumb as to make all of these horrible decisions regarding twitter.... This has got to be destroying twitter by design, on purpose.

I mean, seriously.... he has done literally everything that you SHOULDN'T do. Fire the majority of the company. Destroy over a decade worth of very good branding. Alienate all investors. Alienate the user base. Piss off the remaining users more. Drive away advertisers....

FFS, the dude has a company that sends rockets into space, and previously, the world's premier electric car company... What in the hell is his odd obsession with choking the life out of twitter, that has been costing him money left and right due to absolutely horrible publicity.

[–] miracleorange@beehaw.org 44 points 1 year ago

Please remember that SpaceX and Tesla have entire teams dedicated to handling Elon and reversing his decisions. Twitter did not have the infrastructure required to handle the sheer level of stupid that is Elon Musk.

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If he wanted Twitter to fail, he could have just unplugged all the servers and be done with it.

No need for him to change the policies so much everyone would leave, break his internet persona, and then declare Xitter bankrupt.

No, I believe he bought Twitter in order to manipulate the US presidential election by spreading propaganda from what he considers a "left-wing bubble". But because he has no idea how to run a social media, he is failing to keep it together and by now is throwing stuff against it to see what sticks.

[–] briongloid@aussie.zone 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

He owes a lot of money to banks, etc, for the company.

Explicitly closing Twitter would make him liable for destroying other people's equity. Accidentally destroying twitter while pretending to drastically fix it, while pretending it's failing against his will and his taking measures to save it, is the only way to kill it without being on the hook for it.

[–] FlowVoid@midwest.social 5 points 1 year ago

Incompetence is not a legal defense.

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 year ago

I doubt he won't be on the hook for the billions he got as investment no matter how he destroys Twitter.

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Haven’t you heard the story about that one time when he literally unplugged a bunch of servers? He also had zero regards to the proper protocol for moving hardware like that.

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, but he didn't do that with every server sadly

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

It was a good start. Elon should pull that same stunt with all the data centers he owns.

[–] Peafield@programming.dev 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's razor

[–] renard_roux@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago

Can't... can't it be both? 🤔

[–] MayonnaiseArch@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

He's a stupid man. But he's also sitting on mbs dick, so he does what daddy says

[–] Auzy@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

He's probably losing money on it.. So, it makes sense for him to kill it, before he digs a deeper hole.

That being said, he's an engineer who seriously got angry at cave divers when they told him his sub sucks.

And I'm willing to bet many of the crappy design decisions for Tesla are made by him too

So, possible he's an idiot, but, equally possible, he's trying to kill it in a subtle way which won't instantly drive all traffic to a competitor