Abu Zar Mishwani
X, formerly Twitter, announced on Tuesday that it’s going to experiment with a subscription plan. They’ll ask for a $1 yearly fee to access basic features.
The subscription model is termed “Not A Bot,” which will require users to pay for actions like liking, sharing, quoting, and bookmarking posts on the web version of the platform.
X introduced the “Not A Bot” subscription to fight against bots and spammers. The fee will differ in each country, depending on the exchange rate.
The “Not A Bot” subscription will initially be rolled out to users in New Zealand and the Philippines. During this trial, current users won’t be impacted. However, new users who choose not to subscribe will only have access to viewing and reading posts, watching videos, and following accounts.
Bots have been a significant concern for Elon Musk since his acquisition of the company last year. In July, X implemented restrictions on tweet viewing to safeguard the authenticity of its user base.
In recent news, Reuters reported, citing an inside source, that X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino held a meeting with the company’s lenders. During the meeting, she outlined the company’s plans to trial three subscription tiers, with pricing based on the number of ads displayed to the user.
In August, Musk announced that X would eliminate the option for users to block other accounts. The block function on X allows users to prevent specific accounts from contacting them, viewing their posts, or following them.
Musk stated in a post on the platform that “Block is going to be deleted as a ‘feature’, except for DMs,” referring to direct messages.
He also mentioned that X would still keep the mute function, which shields a user from seeing posts from specific accounts without notifying those accounts of the action.