Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter/X, is floating an idea that he's had before to remedy the problem of social media bots: charging people to use social media.
        • errer@lemmy.worldEnglish
          132·
          10 months ago

          People keep saying that and yet…the platform still lives. Just like Reddit.

          • sonnenzeit@feddit.de
            20·
            10 months ago

            A mandatory subscription is a much harsher barrier to the median user though.

            We have a direct reference point for this: when Reddit began to charge for access to its API. 3rd party clients for Reddit like Apollo, RIF, Infinity, etc could have carried on by charging their users a low monthly fee in turn. The Apollo developer calculates 2.50 $/month as the additional cost to pass on. That is quite low for the potential utility you’re getting if you compare it to even a cup of coffee yet still expensive enough for 3rd party apps to shut down.

            Point is: many users may ultimately not care enough about the issues around censorship, botting, propaganda, hate speech or the persona of the CEO himself but once their wallets are affected its a different story.

    • over_clox@lemmy.world
      81·
      10 months ago

      The Flying Spaghetti Monster also approves of this message, and will relay the message to all other deities.

  • Darkard@lemmy.worldEnglish
    150·
    10 months ago

    He told Benjamin Netanyahu?.. He just decided to tell the prime minister of Israel? Of all people?

    Not like a press announcement, a notification to people using the site? Just to some politician he was talking to while on some rich wankers holiday?

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
    1041·
    10 months ago

    “[We’re] moving to a small monthly payment for use of the X system,” he just told Benjamin Netanyahu, saying it’s [the] only way to stamp out bots actual human users .

    FTFY

    • Tak@lemmy.ml
      40·
      10 months ago

      It’ll remove more humans than bots if Classic WoW has taught me anything.

    • clutch@lemmy.ml
      23·
      10 months ago

      I sincerely hope his management team applies their best judgment and deliver exactly what their boss requested of them. It’s the right thing to do according to their employment contracts.

      • Yoru@lemmy.ml
        2·
        10 months ago

        he has children? only kid I know is that one kid that was named A X 010 or smth

        • ttmrichter@lemmy.world
          3·
          10 months ago

          He has donated sperm to the production of a truly terrifying number of children.

          I can’t say he has “fathered” any because that motherfucker isn’t a father by any reasonable definition. He’s a greebly little sperm donor.

        • babyphatman @lemmy.ml
          2·
          10 months ago

          He has 11 children and believes it’s his duty to repopulate the planet and save the human race. Not joking.

  • Grant_M@lemmy.caEnglish
    593·
    10 months ago

    I want to charge Elon Musk for helping russian terrorists in their genocide of Ukrainian children.

  • ScrollinMyDayAway@lemm.eeEnglish
    45·
    10 months ago

    Please let it die. It will be nice to force media outlets to actually put effort into stories again, instead of just reporting on what is being tweeted by the usual gaggle of assholes.

      • Stovetop@lemmy.world
        12·
        10 months ago

        There’s already a concerning number of articles that just pull sources from Reddit…which then get posted onto Reddit for more discussion.

        Hopefully Lemmy doesn’t end up like that.

  • Hiccup@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    43·
    10 months ago

    There will be singing, and dancing, in Jerusalem when this happens! Can’t wait for Twitter to disappear!

    • SirQuackTheDuck@lemmy.world
      4·
      10 months ago

      DON’T YOURS MEAN ✗, IT CAN DO EVERYTHING AND DRIVE YOUR CAR TO YOUR PERFECT SUBURBTOPIA

      ^(no, you’re screaming, I’m just being sarcastic)

    • KingCapitalist@lemmy.world
      433·
      10 months ago

      There will be singing, and dancing, in Jerusalem when this happens! Can’t wait for Twitter to disappear!

      Is Jerusalem some kind of dogwhistle about “greedy Jews”??? Who even brought up Jerusalem?

      Looks like the alt-right infiltrated lemmyworld too

      • PP_GIRL_@lemmy.world
        122·
        10 months ago

        It’s a Mountain Goats reference, bozo. But I’d expect nothing more intelligent to come from someone who calls themselves “King Capitalist”

        • KingCapitalist@lemmy.world
          233·
          10 months ago

          I’m not acquainted with C-tier millenial pop trash.

          Even then, I think you made a subconscious relation between charging money - Jews - Jerusalem, which caused you to connect with the symbol of that song and make the reference. Thankfully, you’re still crypto at worst.

            • KingCapitalist@lemmy.world
              110·
              10 months ago

              millenial

              published 2005

              C-tier

              garbage instrumentals, dead nasally voice, banal lyrics, painfully repetitive rhythm and progression, complete lack of development.

              pop

              Okay, let’s say hipstercore or “indie folk” or whatever you people without taste call it. In my lexicon, pop means nasty slop.

      • Hiccup@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        10·
        10 months ago

        It’s a fucking song reference. Also, it’s a particularly popular song, especially in lieu of the recent pandemic and such. It’s been on the late show with Colbert.

    • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
      27·
      10 months ago

      No, inertia is a thing and Twitter was one of the biggest brands on the planet when Musk bought it. If anything, he speedruns its demise.

      • ttmrichter@lemmy.world
        2·
        10 months ago

        Twitter was never a particularly big brand. Even in just the space of social media it was an also-ran.

        At its peak (and it’s nowhere near its peak now!) Twitter had ~400 million monthly active users. Reddit has ~500 million. Snapchat ~750. Telegram ~800. LinkedIn ~930 (!). Messenger and TikTok ~1 billion each. Instagram and Whatsapp ~2 each. Youtube ~2.5. And Facebook ~3 billion.

        Twitter at its peak is just barely outside of rounding error territory compared to Facebook and Youtube.

        And here I’ve compared Twitter against its “peers”: international social media sites. There are regional social media sites that are bigger than Twitter was at its peak. QZone is ~500 million. QQ and Weibo are ~575. Kuaishou is ~650. Douyin (Tiktok’s origin) is ~725. WeChat is 1.3 billion. These six sites are in one country only … and each of them are larger than Twitter’s highest ever count. (And note that in China Weibo is considered largely a joke. At 550 million. Larger, again I stress, than Twitter was at its peak.)

        The only reason Twitter has ever been treated as anything but a loser’s game is because lazy-assed reporters found reading sound bites on Twitter was easier than doing actual reportage. As a result Twitter has had outsized visibility for its rather pathetic actual participation.

        The same reporters who report on China by looking in on Weibo (the “joke”).