Elon Musk has already proposed a $8 monthly fee for the 'Verified' check mark on Twitter, but is also reportedly considering putting the entire site behind a paywall. If accurate, the report would suggest that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO is planning on moving ahead with many more changes at Twitter since his $44 billion takeover last month. Musk has been implementing several changes at Twitter ever since taking over the company, and some of them have been highly controversial. He started off his first day as the new owner by firing three of the top executives in the company, including CEO Parag Agarwal, before laying off nearly 50 percent of the company's total workforce.
Some other changes, however, have been less controversial. One such change is a revamped Home page for logged-out users, which now shows trending tweets and news stories instead of a simple username and password prompt for users to log in to their accounts. Over the weekend, Musk also announced that Twitter will permanently ban impersonators if those accounts are not clearly labeled as parodies. The company has already started implementing the new policy, suspending the accounts of multiple users, including that of comedian Kathy Griffin for changing her display name to Elon Musk.
According to Casey Newton at Platformer, Musk and his advisors have discussed charging all Twitter users a subscription fee for using the social media site. The report, which cites an inside source at Twitter, claims that one of the plans discussed in the meetings was to allow everyone to use Twitter for a limited amount of time every month before they would need to pay up to keep using the platform.
Monthly Subscription To Use Twitter?
Thankfully, the report claims that the plans to put Twitter behind a paywall might not be implemented right away, as the company is still working out the intricacies of the new subscription policy. However, with massive debt and a slowdown in advertising revenue following the pause in spending by major advertisers, Twitter has to find a way to monetize its users if it has to stay afloat in the long term. Given the precarious situation, Elon Musk will likely do everything in his power to recoup his massive investment in the company.
The mass layoffs last week were part of Musk's plans to save every last penny on Twitter's day-to-day operations. With the income drying up, the layoff is expected to save the company millions of dollars in employee salaries. However, as it turns out, the company went too far with the layoffs, with attempts being made to rehire several employees to ensure smooth operations at the company. From the looks of it, Musk and his advisers are currently throwing out random ideas to see what sticks, so there's no telling if the plan to turn Twitter into a subscription site will work out in the long run.
Source: Platformer