Hey everybody, you're back to the Elon Musk podcast.
This is a show where we discuss
the critical crossroads, the ShapeSpaceX, Tesla, X, the
Boring Company, and Neuralink. And
I'm your host, Will Walden. One
more thing before we start. Google
Podcasts is being discontinued by Google. So
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Google pulled the Google Podcast
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to continue finding the show. Over
at YouTube Music, search for Elon Musk podcast. Let
me ask you a question. Would
you pay to be part of a social media network? More
importantly, would you pay to be a user on Elon
Musk's x .com? So Elon Musk has just
announced a plan to charge new users on the social
media platform x, formerly known as Twitter, of
course, a fee to post content. Would
you pay for that? That's the question. This
aims to address the ongoing issue about accounts that
plague the platform. Musk believes that imposing a
small fee on new users is essential for the future.
For combating the influx of
these fake accounts. Now, since acquiring Twitter,
though, in 2022, Musk has repeatedly floated the idea
of a user fee. He suggests that such a fee
could effectively deter the creation of spam accounts
driven by artificial intelligence and coordinating
with troll farms, which can easily bypass traditional
security measures such as CAPTCHA. Now,
as part of an experimental policy implemented in
October of 2023, x began charging new unverified
users in New Zealand and the Philippines an annual
fee of $1. Now, this fee enabled these
users to engage fully with the platform, allowing them
to post and interact with other content, which was
otherwise restricted. Now, the issue of bots on x
has been a persistent challenge, one that Elon
Musk has vowed to conquer even before finalizing his
purchase of the platform. His
strategy has involved various initiatives aimed at
reducing these unwanted accounts, which not only
distort user engagement metrics, but also compromise
the overall user experience. On
April 15 of this year, attention was drawn to a
change in x's policy that indicated a potential
expansion of the annual user fee to additional
countries. This update was first spotted by
an automated tracking account on x and was later
confirmed by Elon Musk in a series of posts. Musk
said, unfortunately, a small fee for new user right
access is the only way to curb the relentless
onslaught of bots. Current AI and troll farms can
pass the quote, are you a bot test with ease? Now,
he shows that he's using some rationale for the
policy shift, highlighting the ineffectiveness of
conventional security measures against
sophisticated automated AI systems. Now,
despite the introduction of a user fee, Musk clarified
that new users would not be indefinitely bound to
this fee. You mentioned that after an
initial three months, new users would gain full
access to the platform without any payment, thus
providing a balance between initial security measures
and eventual user freedom. Now,
let me ask you a question. If
the bots are so powerful that they can bypass
everything $1 fee doesn't seem like a lot if you
can gain $1 ,000 $10 ,000 $100 ,000 from using the
platform with your bot. Of course, on the black
market, on the gray market, there are credit cards that
are stolen and possibility that they could use those
credit cards with their bots to use their influence
to make more money than $1 on the platform per year.
The introduction of fees for
new users coincides with broader efforts by X to
cleanse the platform of spam and bots accounts,
though. Earlier in the month, X initiated
a major purge aimed at reducing these accounts,
though the impact on the platform's bot population
remains to be seen. There's no data out there yet from
Elon Musk or from X. Now, Musk's approach to managing
X also involves leveraging the platform's data for his
other ventures. For instance, his AI company, X
AI utilizes public posts from X to train his
machine learning algorithms. This
integration shows that Elon is using his broader vision
and all of his companies combined to make X AI
better. But if there are bot accounts
on X, he's not getting clean data for his AI
models. And that's going to be a huge
problem in the future. Now, X's strategy to monetize
and also, let's say, enhance user engagement
includes making its advanced chatbot grok available to
premium users. And like I said, if that's
trained on bot information, there's no real upside to
it. Because if there's millions of
bots, bot accounts compared to human accounts, it's
going to be a tough go for grok at this point.
Now, grok used to be offered at
a higher subscription tier, and it's now more
accessible, potentially increasing its use and
relevance within the user base. Now,
the financial aspect of the changes is significant. X
has been facing financial challenges with a reported
71 % drop in its value since Musk's takeover. The
introduction of a posting fee could provide a new
revenue stream at a time when the platform has
experienced significant advertising revenue losses.
Now, the decline in advertising
dollars was particularly stark following a backlash
from advertisers over content moderation issues.
Companies like Comcast, Apple, and
the Walt Disney Company withdrew their ads after a
report service of ads appearing next to
inappropriate content, including pro Nazi and hate
speech. Now, Musk's direct responses to
advertisers concerns have been controversial. In
an interview, he bluntly criticized those withdrawing
their advertising from X, which reflects his
unconventional approach to business and public
relations. In response to the ongoing
challenges with brand safety, though, third party
firms like double verify have been involved in
assessing the suitability of content on X for
advertisers. There have been discrepancies in
these assessments indicating ongoing issues with
maintaining a brand safe environment. The
bot problem at X is not just a nuisance, but it's
a huge operational challenge impacting everything from
user experience to advertising trust and
revenue. And Musk's decision to impose a
posting fee on new users is a strategic move to
mitigate these issues, albeit we don't know how
effective this is going to be. And
neither does Elon at this point, could drive some
users away. I know to post on X. There's
no reason for me to pay a dollar for that. I'll
just move to a different platform. Most
people think the same way. And
these platforms have been historically free. And
we can post whatever we want whenever we want to
Facebook, even threads now, all of these platforms,
Instagram, YouTube, Spotify for podcasters where we
post this podcast, everything's free to post.
Why would I pay even a dollar
to be able to post on this platform? Now
this policy change has sparked a variety of
reactions like mine right there. And
I would love to hear what you say about it. Because
if you're a user of X, you should be concerned
about this. Some view the fee as a
necessary evil, though, and I totally understand that.
If there are hundreds of
millions of bots running around doing malicious
things, putting a barrier to entry in front of them
is one of the best ways to mitigate this. Now,
these the quality of interactions on X, while
others are concerned about the potential barrier it
creates for new users. I can understand that too.
Maybe you don't have a dollar to
interact with these platforms, maybe you're in
a financial situation, maybe you're in a different
country than the United States, and you don't make
a lot of money, you don't make a dollar that you can
put towards social media. So
I can understand that too. And
you'd probably move platforms like I was
talking about before, move over to threads or just
move to Instagram or some other platform Facebook,
etc. So you could post your
content. And that's understandable. And
as X continues to evolve under Musk's leadership, the
effectiveness of this new fee system in combating
bots will be important all over stakeholders from users
to advertisers will be watching closely to see
what happens with his imposed $1 fee for X.