Users Are Sick Of Elon Musk's Continuous Payment Experiments With X

More users want Elon Musk to stop conducting payment experiences on X!

The app's users voiced their exact take on the matter after the business magnate's team announced that they would commence testing a new payment method for users in New Zealand and the Philippines. This test follows Musk's call that all users might soon be required to subscribe to X as a means of combatting scams and spam on the platform.

X has announced the testing of a program called "Not a Bot," which will require new users in New Zealand and the Philippines to sign up for a $1 annual subscription to post and interact with other content.

New users in the testing region who opt not to subscribe to the premium or the annual service will still be able to read posts, watch videos, and follow accounts. However, they won't be able to interact on the platform. 

"This new test was developed to bolster our already successful efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount. It is not a profit driver," the statement read before pointing readers to a landing page that covered everything about the new payment experiment.

The post has since gone viral, earning more than 20 million views, nearly 5k reposts, and 17.4k likes. As already mentioned, X users were not having it and they didn't hesitate to express their displeasure at Musk's seemingly bizarre — and nonstop — modifications to the app. 

"Okay, so "making people pay for something that was free one minute before because I have to pay back the over 44 billion debt I have" is now called "testing a new program," mmmh I see," one critic sarcastically noted, as another simply dropped three clown emojis. 

A third person wondered, "How will paying $1 annual fee reduce spam and bots on X?," while a fourth claimed, "This platform is currently going through the worst bot phase it's had in the 14 years I've been on here. Please stop pretending this app is making successful changes. it's getting worse with each update."

A fifth commenter expressed, "this seems like an obviously terrible idea for a social website," a sixth queried, "Can you make a good decision for once in your life?," and a seventh chimed, "The bot problem got worse with Elon buying Twitter. The issues with Twitter aren't the bots, it's Elon. Get rid of him."

"Funny how every solution for Twitter he ever comes up with is to implement a pay wall," an eighth nitpicker observed.

Musk had previously ruffled feathers when he suggested during a live-streamed conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that implementing a "small monthly payment" could potentially assist in decreasing the presence of bots on X. 

"It's the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots," the SpaceX boss stated, further explaining that his platform boasts 550 million monthly users who collectively generate 100 million to 200 million posts daily.

This proposed approach appears to be distinct from X's premium subscription service, which costs $8 a month for benefits such as a blue checkmark, prioritized rankings, and post-editing.

The former chairman of Tesla has also targeted content creation in his bid to make the app profitable enough to attract advertisers. Per a recent X, Musk stated:

"For those considering putting their work on the X platform, consider that Tucker Carlson's show when he was on TV, had single digit million viewers. Strong by legacy news standards. Views for his episodes on X now exceed the population of the United States. Talk to Earth via X!" 

Musk also attempted to entice comedian Bill Maher to return to X following the latter's update that "Real Time" would make a comeback during the Writers Guild of America strike.

"Real Time is coming back, unfortunately, sans writers or writing. It has been five months, and it is time to bring people back to work. The writers have important issues that I sympathize with, and hope they are addressed to their satisfaction, but they are not the only people with issues, problems, and concerns.

Despite some assistance from me, much of the staff is struggling mightily," the "Politically Incorrect" host detailed in a statement posted on X. He added that even though he loved his writers, he didn't plan "to lose an entire year and see so many below-the-line people suffer so much." Maher then rattled off a series of segments that he'd trim off in of the strike. 

Responding to the lengthy declaration, Musk typed, "Maybe worth posting some material on this platform. The reach is enormous."