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X Tests 'Not A Bot' Program That Charges New Users $1/Year to Post

AlexJaye said:
Anything with Elon is a grift and a joke.
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Maybe X is, but I wouldn’t say “anything.”

Tell that to all the SpaceX rockets that have successfully launched and put hundreds of satellites into orbit and even docked with the International Space Station (and even landed the rocket boosters for reuse).

The number of SpaceX rocket launches in 2023 is already a world record, beating the one set in 2022 (by SpaceX).

NASA can’t launch a rocket anymore. Government can’t do anything anymore. (And to think, the Internet itself was invented by the U.S. Department of Defense as a product of the Cold War with the USSR.)
 
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MR is free and the best social network. It is regularly moderated. I have gotten more love notes from mods than from my own girlfriend, but at the same time I have gotten away with more than a few playful comments. So shoutout to the mods, my bffs. ✌️
 
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sack_peak said:
Not all spammers can afford $8/month. In the same way not all actual users can afford $1/year.

If you can reduce the spam and make some money then why not?
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Because it’s not going to stop spammers (as proven by the fact that many are paying for the blue check) and it’s going to keep a lot of users out. It’s literally just another half-baked idea in Elon’s long list of them.
 
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A couple of years ago I would have laughed at this. These days, I'm not clear that random people being able to post to a place like Twitter without any skin in the game is actually of value to anyone.
 
Capeto said:
Because it’s not going to stop spammers (as proven by the fact that many are paying for the blue check) and it’s going to keep a lot of users out. It’s literally just another half-baked idea in Elon’s long list of them.
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Elon's worth a quarter of a trillion $.

Once you make a quarter of a billion pennies then you have the right to criticize.
 
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While I don't think X is worth $1/year, this is certainly one way to reduce bots (I suspect many bots will pay $1/year still anyway though).

The flip side is that if this is implemented across the board, it will significantly reduce the user growth, engagement, as well as preventing some of the common practical use cases such as customer support.

If I was Elon, the way I would implement is one-time fee to become a verified user, no recurring cost. The verification process involves submitting documentations or knowledge base authentication, just like other websites that require identity verification.

And in parallel, I would beef up AI-based fact checker, including reverse image search, to filter contents deemed unreliable.
 
He is experimenting with the platform he purchased, it is pretty common for companies to change their business model. We have already seen app developers go from one time purchases to subscription models after saying they would never do so.
I enjoy watching the hatred he evokes from any side with the moves he makes. He's living rent free in so many heads here alone. This test does not affect everyone but already some are making it out to be a world-wide change. Do you all promise it will be the end of X? That goal post has moved a lot these days.
 
sack_peak said:
Elon's worth a quarter of a trillion $.

Once you make a quarter of a billion pennies then you have the right to criticize.
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LOL you ran out of arguments so now you just say I can’t criticize him. Wrong!

I can very easily criticize him for ignoring safety regulations at his Tesla plants, rolling out a beta Autopilot program that endangers drivers and pedestrians, promising respirators for COVID patients and instead delivering BPAP machines (after predicting zero new COVID infections by April 2020), sexually harassing his employee, restoring the Twitter accounts of anti-semites after his takeover, forcing retirees out of their homes to build a SpaceX launchpad, and brutally torturing and killing monkeys for a pet project of his. This is without mentioning that he only touted Hyperloop to kill California’s proposed high-speed rail, and it ended being a ridiculous one-way, single-lane tunnel.

Elon Musk is not only a massive fraud who keeps failing upwards, but a sociopath who has surrounded himself with yes men who have bought into his Iron Man/savior of humanity shtick, with no regards for anyone but himself.
 
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sack_peak said:
I think this is a great way to get to filter out new bots & ID trolls from the social network formerly known as Twitter.

Wish this was implemented on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and especially Reddit.
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All it will do is allow the rich and powerful a larger voice as they can easily pay for thousands or millions of bots while the average person can't.
 
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jz0309 said:
I wouldn’t pay 1 penny to join them…
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the scammers won't pay anything. They'll just spin up an unlimited number of accounts with stolen credit card numbers and temporary phone numbers.
The chargebacks will mean X gets no cash flow, the s[cp]ammers get unlimited posting until the accounts are disabled and it all devolves into a game of whack-a-mole type war to shut down new bogus accounts faster than they can be created. How long would it take you to notice a fraudulent $1 charge on your account? would you even bother to investigate it?

This solves nothing and anyone with any practical intelligence (not Musk) would see this as the inevitable outcome.
 
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rushmere said:
Alternative take: "Create as much spam and hate speech as you like for only $1 per year!".
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This is what I read as well.

The verified 8 (?) dollar a year program and paying people for their content based on engagement has resulted in a lot more rage-baiting than I’d seen on there previously, for example.

People know they’re getting more engagement with divisive topics and since that engagement now pays…
 
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marzbarz said:
Didn't many people say X would be dead by now? Maybe perhaps, Elon knows what he's doing.

Can't wait for the "surely they're going to die from this new thing" comments. One more year should do it! 😂
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It takes a lot of time to destroy all 44 billion dollars worth of 'value'. But a genius he most certainly isn't. Desperate, yes. I guess the question is - is it thriving? Growing? Having a cultural impact in some way other than flailing about and becoming a punchline for hubris?
 
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Between this feature, phone number verification and selfie-authentication, this isn't about the $1, this is about harvesting personally identifiable information and being able to associate an account with a real person.
 
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A good way to keep away bots (and other spammers) would be a micro transaction pr post (or pr email) so the avarage person would pay lets say 10$ a year, but if you send 100.000 tweets (or likes) it would cost you 1000$
same for mail, imagin if you had to pay for a mail, like an old letter, im pretty sure it would cut down on the billions of spam mails.
 
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