[threeseed]

This has nothing to do with bots.

It's all about getting everyone to provide their credit card details for future revenue streams eg. micro-transactions.

And also to give them a competitive advantage in the ad space e.g. allowing companies to target you based on your real life identity.

[lapcat]

Except the plan will never work for mobile users who sign up via the App Store or Google Play Store.

"According to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, Musk’s push to sign-up subscribers was very much intertwined with his quest to build an “everything app,” and Musk grew angry when he learned Apple doesn’t share credit card details of those who sign up with their iPhones." https://www.engadget.com/x-is-starting-to-charge-new-users-1...

Of course every iOS developer already knew this, including members of his own engineering staff, which just goes to show how insulated and out of touch with reality the guy is.

[basisword]

Just finished reading the bio so I can clarify this a bit. Despite what it sounds like out of context the take away was that he did know the App Store rules but he was under the (wrong) impression a company of that scale could speak with Apple and get the data anyway.

[dkdbejwi383]

TBH this highlights even more how out of touch they are -- too used to living in a bubble where the rich can get what they want and bypass rules that apply to regular folk.

[ffwszgf]

It’s not like there’s no precedent for this. Look at all the rules WeChat was able to ignore due to their size and influence. I assume Elon expected a similar treatment for Twitter.

[noirscape]

WeChat is backed by the CCP, aka the government with a military and de facto legal control over Apples factories. If they don't comply with WeChats requests, the CCP can ban Apple from doing business in China, with force if they have to. Hence, Apple complies.

That's where the precedent comes from - WeChat (as well as basically all major Chinese companies) carry state backing to force their way. Musk has afaict no backing from any government, least of all the DoD (who hate his guts for the shit he's pulled with Starlink in Ukraine).

[aurareturn]

You're overreaching. Can the Chinese government force WeChat to provide data to the government? Yes. But WeChat is a private product built by a private company. In addition, WeChat has a ton of competitors inside China as well. These competitors can overtake WeChat. The government isn't preventing competitors from competing directly with WeChat.

WeChat is literally just Tencent. I'm staying at a hotel next to Tencent office right now in Shenzen. There aren't any military people working here. Just engineers.

Read my post within this chain for why I think WeChat has a lot of power when it comes to getting Apple to create features it needs.

[aurareturn]

WeChat is way more important to everyday life in China than the iPhone is. I'm writing to you from Shenzen right now.

You don't need an iPhone to survive in China. You absolutely need WeChat to survive. For example, you literally can't order food when dining inside a large number of restaurants without WeChat. The menu is in WeChat.

So whatever WeChat (Tencent) wants, Apple has to consider it. Otherwise, Chinese phone makers can and will provide more convenience.

[lapcat]

Thanks for the clarification.

However, I don't think it's even legal for Apple to hand over credit card info to third parties. Not that Apple would anyway, because it would completely destroy customer trust in Apple.

[kshacker]

I guess Musk does not talk to Zuck

[api]

Make life multi planetary? Nah.

Try to clone WeChat in the US but with more trolls? Now that’s important to the human future.

[mrweasel]

It would actually be completely fair to say that X now costs $1 per month to use. You'd have to drop the ads as well, which given their fall out with larger advertisers again would make sense. In some weird sense it would fit with my overall view of Musk, if the advertisers don't like what he's doing, he'll block their access to his platform.

Journalists, consultants and influencers could just expense the cost and get a tax deduction or have their employer pay. Given the value most people claim to get from X/Twitter I don't see why $12 - $20 isn't a reasonable cost.

I'm also not sure if a dollar per month would be enough to keep bots at bay, it's also a little unreasonable to simply outsource your vetting of users to the credit card companies and banks in this manor and I doubt that neither VISA nor MasterCard finds the idea amusing.

[HeckFeck]

Indeed. X could raise the funds by using anonymous payment methods, but we all know it won't use those.

[bluescrn]

It might cut down on anonymous harassment/abuse if people can't create anonymous accounts and hide behind VPNs and throwaway email addresses.

But it's not going to make any difference to anything if it doesn't apply to existing accounts.

[paulette449]

I'm embarrassed for Musk. He overpays for Twitter, mismanages it to a lower value, and is now panhandling for dollar bills to make himself whole.

[bluescrn]

I'm amazed that the 'rebranding' was started, seemingly with no plan, then just aborted, with x.com still just being a redirect to twitter.com, and everything still in 'Twitter blue'.

Nobody's going to call it X, and 'ex dot com' isn't a great name. He should probably just accept that mistakes were made and revert it.