For one of the richest guys on the planet, Elon Musk sure does love begging for other people’s money. Here’s his latest scam: The SpaceX founder is now saying that Twitter (#NeverX) will have to go behind a paywall for all users in order to combat bots. This is America in a nutshell: A rich guy buys his way into something that has been free, screws it up to an epic degree, and then creates a reason why now said free thing must be paid for. Anyway, here’s his manufactured reason why, per Insider:
“The single most important reason that we are moving to having a small monthly payment for the use of the X system, is it is the only way I could think of to combat vast armies of bots,” Musk said during a livestream on X with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Monday.
Musk told Netanyahu that having a payment system and prioritizing premium users’ posts would help minimize the influence of bots.
“Because a bot costs a fraction of a penny, call it a tenth of a penny, but even if it has to pay a few dollars or something, some minor amount, the effective cost of bots is very high,” Musk said.
Elon understands that we’re well aware of alt-accounts, right? So like, maybe start cleaning your own house before you come for the bots, my dude. This is one of those things that, if I were 12 and didn’t understand how anything works in this world, might seem reasonable on its surface. However, I am not a child, so none of this makes any sense unless you accept that he’s coming up with a flimsy cover for bald-faced greed. Which, hey, fair dues. He bought the stupid site, so I guess he gets to do whatever he wants with it. I am just here to categorically say that it will be a cold day in hell when I pay for Twitter, and give a site that is held together with spit and bubblegum my financial data. If you find this a good use of your money, I suggest you consider lighting it on fire instead. At least that would probably be more entertaining to watch.
I don’t care if Twitter costs one penny every 10 years. I simply refuse to pay for a site that Musk not only made worse but where he keeps letting insufferable mean-spirited dorks like Jordan Peterson back on simply because they’ll engage with him.
Musk, obviously, is doubling down on the whole bots-made-me-do-this defense, per the above source:
Musk said he believed the paywall would be critical if X was to deal with bots on the platform.
“We are actually going to come up with a lower-tier pricing. We want it to be just a small amount of money,” Musk said. “It’s a longer discussion, but this is actually the only defense against armies of bots.”
Look, I know that the fight between Mark Zuckerberg and Musk was called off. But if Zuck can figure out a way to keep Facebook free for users (bots, and all), then surely Elon Musk can, can’t he?
This whole thing is ridiculous, and I don’t particularly understand what the endgame here is. The whole point of Twitter is logging on to the void, saying something stupid, and then watching how everyone reacts. Sometimes it’s funny, and most of the time it’s infuriating. But I can literally be more entertained by throwing rocks into a lake. This is not only free, but I am all but certain it comes with 99 percent less verbal abuse than existing as a woman on Twitter. So to Elon Musk, I say, good luck, buddy. You bought a fun playground, renamed it something very dumb, and turned it into an abandoned patch of dirt where gross people poop on the slide. And now you want to charge people to gawk at the spectacle. Let me know how that goes.
(featured image: Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
