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.
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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.”
