386
submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

Elon Musk has indicated that X, formerly known as Twitter, is preparing to charge all users for accessing the platform.

The X owner said erecting a paywall around the business would ward off the bots, or automated accounts, that have become a bugbear for Musk.

Speaking in a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, the Tesla CEO and world’s richest person suggested that X was going to charge its user base. Currently, Twitter only charges users for its subscription service X Premium, which offers perks such as a verified account checkmark and costs $11 a month in the US for iPhones and £11 in the UK.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] TheFriar@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Why couldn’t he be? There is ample evidence that, yes, he is this dumb and he’d had less press/more handling before. Remember, there was a different story about him. News outlets love their stories. The story was Musk = quiet, nerdy genius billionaire that was gonna save the world and Zuckerberg and Bezos were the quintessential villains in the press. Now that Zuckerberg rebranded with “Meta” and 2016 is in the distant past now, we hear much less about him and Bezos got a huge sympathy injection by getting divorced (and, I’m not even sure I’m remembering this properly, but the last thing I heard about him was his divorce and his ex wife getting half of everything).

Around this time, the pandemic hit and musk became the richest man alive, the really dumb shit he was saying and doing was more visible (and embraced by the right) and boom. All credibility was gone, all the stories from Paypal and SpaceX about his childishness and need to be corralled became common knowledge, and his story changed. The media had a new story, a new target, and it was a profitable one. Put the microscope on him and he kept fucking up. Then he kept doing douchey shit, bought twitter, and from there the dumpster fire of this really public failing became the flash point to display his stupidity.

My point is, he’s always been his dumb, given all the current evidence. It just wasn’t the story for a while. Now it is. So it seems like a new quality.

[-] fuzzybee@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago

I haven't heard much about Bezos since he sent Shatner to space and then was a total dick and cut him off during his post flight interview.

His ex, on the other hand, has been taking her half of the divorce settlement and giving hundreds of millions to good causes.

Best thing that man ever did was divorce her.

Excuse me, I think today's Amazon package has arrived.

[-] TheFriar@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah, that’s what I’m sayin. There was a time when Bezos was the richest man, he was achieving complete ubiquity and there was serious talk from people being so sick of him and his bullshit that there was anti-Amazon, anti-whole foods talks.

He fades into the background, people guiltlessly keep ordering from Amazon, shopping at Whole Foods, and Bezos keeps raking in the money. I mean, shit, I literally just read an article about Whole Foods fighting to keep BLM pins/hats out of their stores (on employees, that is) using the ANTI-GAY CAKE/WEBSITE ruling and…crickets.

It’s not just the news that loves their stories, we people do as well. They keep things nice and tidy for us, letting us know exactly what to be upset about and what to let go. Keeps capitalism working nicely (as, I’m sure, a fringe benefit).

[-] KnightontheSun@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I am still not ordering anything from Amazon. We do exist. Dozens of us even.

[-] Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

He was quieter before. If you look back to the beginnings of his Twitter account you can watch him develop an addiction, and he got more obnoxious as he craved the dopamine and developed a platform. That doesn’t mean he was super smart before but there wasn’t much of a place where he was speaking to the public outside of the media, and in those stories the Howard Hughes dreamer genius style was common. When people are quiet you tend not to think about them much otherwise. If he had stayed off of twitter the opinions about him would likely continue to be pretty positive.

People do talk about Zuckerberg, it’s just in relation to fighting Musk or about Threads. Facebook is increasingly irrelevant to young people and Instagram has never had the same level of controversy. What are people going to say about him that hasn’t been said? It doesn’t mean they don’t still think it and now think he’s some good guy.

Same for Bezos. His space stuff is what people talk about now and make fun of him for because he stepped down from most Amazon stuff in 2021. He’s always been quiet otherwise, what was talked about mostly was the crappy work culture he created at Amazon and the villainy was driving out local businesses. You might think people think Amazon is a great company now, but my experience is that people still aren’t super fans it is just a matter of selection, price, and convenience. People don’t suddenly think he’s a good guy.

[-] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

deleted by creator

this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
386 points (84.7% liked)

News

22890 readers
3742 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS