“Not A Bot”, a new subscription method for new users in two countries

While I don't like paying personally, I think the long term solution for any service is you pay for the service provided. The current free everything is nice at first, but quality suffered horribly and incentives are not aligned at all.

Also, when paying,I become a real customer in the EU, with all kinds of consumer protection getting enabled. E.g. they can't randomly ban you anymore (even if that's more a google thing). TBH, I don't see big tech accept this without a fight, but they won't have much choice if they don't want to wake the courts and regulators

Whatsapp used to be a paid priduct, and it worked better than it does today.

Wait, but I thought that the $8 where "...the only way to defeat the bots & trolls." What happened?

https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/elon-musk-suggests-8-d...

So... prove you're not a bot by paying $1?? Nice monetization tactic, Elon.