Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X (formerly known as Twitter), has announced that the platform will soon charge all users a small monthly payment.
The move was aimed at curbing the presence of bots(accounts run by computer programs rather than humans) on the platform.
Musk revealed that X currently has 550 million monthly users, who generate up to 200 million posts per day.
The introduction of a paywall was expected to deter bot operators, as they would need to set up new payment methods for each account.
The paywall will also help address the decline in advertising revenue that X has experienced recently.
Musk said:
“Moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the X system.
“It’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots.
“Because a bot costs a fraction of a penny — call it a tenth of a penny — but if somebody even has to pay a few dollars, some minor amount, the effective cost of bots is very high.
“And then you also have to get a new payment method every time you have a new bot.”
