Elon Musk’s swathe of terrible ideas didn’t all make it as far as his flawed paid verification scheme, with reports he once planned to put a paywall over all of Twitter.
Horrendous decisions are still being made by Musk in regards to Twitter, but the world can thank their lucky stars he didn’t go ahead with a plan to hide the app over a paywall — yet. The staggeringly low pick-up of Twitter Blue subscriptions has led Musk to wonder if a paywall would help recoup the estimated $30 billion he overpaid for to own Twitter.
According to Platformer, Musk is still in discussions with his team over a radical change to the platform. The outlet reports as it stands, Twitter Blue will still lose money with its light-ad plan due to the cut of subscription fees going to Apple, Google Play, and other app hosts. Similarly not helped is the delay for the paid verification scheme due to election interference fears.
Platformer’s insider reports Musk has discussed having a parental lock-like system on Twitter to stop users from using it more than a certain amount of time per day or month. Suddenly, freedom of speech and the prevalence of bot or sock puppet accounts to circumvent it seem a very real proposition.
Major advertisers are still not keen on spending on Twitter ads, with Musk’s acquisition proving to be a disaster eerily reminiscent of Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of Myspace. Spending $44 billion to become the arbiter of free speech has backfired miserably for the South African billionaire, with him currently fortifying himself under a face of “not caring” as he suspends accounts for parodying him.
All of this has essentially been predicted in a parody from years prior, with noted Twitter sh*tposter Dril unintentionally foreseeing the kerfuffle of the new Twitter.
