It was revealed yesterday that Elon Musk’s social media platform is “testing” a $1/year subscription in order to do literally anything on the website formerly known as Twitter. I don’t think I need to tell you that this is absolutely garbage, and ‘testing’ in Elon Musk terms quite literally means ‘rolling out slowly.’
This is simply the latest in a series of cash grabs from Twitter’s new ownership, as they struggle to stay relevant and afloat amidst a series of bad decisions from the former CEO and current head of product Elon Musk. I mean, link embeds look terrible now, and that’s because of Musk (who can’t even correctly spell the word “aesthetic” in any tweet he makes.)
As a reminder, Twitter’s premium subscription still has less than a million subscribers as of April 2023. So that being said, putting Twitter behind a paywall of any dollar amount will absolutely, without a doubt, kill it for good. And as another reminder, Linda Yaccarino didn’t even know this was going to happen when asked in an interview at Vox’s Code Conference last month.
“Can you repeat?” Yaccarino asked.
“Elon Musk announced you’re moving to an entirely subscription-based service,” Boorstin said. “Nothing free about using X.”
“Did he say we were moving to it specifically or is thinking about it?” Yaccarino asked.
“He said that’s the plan,” Boorstin said. “Did he consult you before he announced that?”
“We talk about everything,” Yaccarino said. She never clarified X’s plans.
And honestly? Maybe that’s for the best.
I’ll see you on Threads, Mastodon, and Bluesky. Twitter’s going the way of the dodo—and it’s all thanks to Elon.
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