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.
It’s an interesting thought, but he misses the #1 problem with online subscriptions- sign-up friction.
If you could just push a button and instantly be charged something, an awful lot of people would do it.
But when you go from $0 to $0.01, you will lose 99% of people, because most people can’t be bothered to fill out a form, put in their credit card number, etc. Even if the amount of money involved is absurdly small, it’s not the price, it’s the friction.
Now if he integrates the app with Apple Pay or Google Wallet that will help, a little. But only a little.
PayPal? Venmo? Just as ubiquitous and already part of his vertical integration.
Assuming the cost is stupid low like a $1/year, low enough that almost nobody will think ‘is this really worth it?’-- every required click or tap after hitting ‘subscribe now’ costs you 25-50% of the people who are still there.
Make it 1 penny for a lifetime subscription. Just having to thumbprint for Google Pay will still cost you 25-50% of the people who hit subscribe. Make it a credit card form with card/exp/cvv/address/tel# and your purchase rate is down to maybe 1% of the people who hit subscribe.