Twitter introduces $1/year change for new users

Surprised they're not launching it everywhere at the same time like they usually do with "new features". I guess they've learned that such a big change might require some testing and adjusting first. Which is good.

That being said, it's going to be interesting to see how users react to this. There is no point in taking bots out if at the same time you take out all of your userbase. I think there's something here that Musk just doesn't seem to understand, in that it's not that 1 dollar a year would make any significant impact on my finances but I literally just can't be bothered to pay for it. Taking my card out, setting up my payment, all of that... that's significant friction.

And when you have that kind of friction, I think it makes people sort of pause and go "do I really want this? Is this even worth it?". I mean, threads is free.

I think one of the main problems with mastodon has to do precisely with the increased friction at sign up; so now for X (formerly known as Twitter) to make it harder for people to sign up... I don't know.

Personally, I'm not a big poster, I'm not going to pay. A read-only experience is fine... but it's not fine when there's nothing interesting to read because most people are not paying. With network effects, once people start leaving, it might turn into a deluge.

Finally, a subscription I can afford as a member of the precariat. 8) Servers and internet connectivity actually cost money, and I'm willing to pay for my usage, which is likely in that $1/year range for most services I use.

It seems that the $1 is less about generating meaningful revenue. Instead, it’s a token charge meant to weed out mass bot accounts.

The MeFi model. Works pretty well there, but it’s a one time fee, not annual.