The Cult of Free was always fake, gay, and propped up by Clown World. And now it is beginning to come to an end:
Billionaire Elon Musk is further cutting the amount of features that Twitter users can access on the platform for free. From April 15, users who do not pay for Twitter Blue – which costs £11/month for Android and iOS – will no longer be able to vote in polls, Musk has said.
They also will no longer have their tweets appear in the ‘For You’ tab, which shows popular tweets that are boosted by an algorithm.
Musk said the changes will stop ‘AI bot swarms taking over’ the site, although he stopped short of explaining exactly how.
The CEO – who purchased the social media network in October – said that paid social media will be ‘the only social media that matters’. ‘[This] is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle.
He’s absolutely correct. AI bots will utterly destroy every free platform in short order. This is just the beginning, and it won’t be long before Twitter blocks all free posting access.
It’s not even remotely surprising that the major platforms are beginning to go the way of Unauthorized, Arktoons, and Gab. I understood – and I explained to Andrew Torba – that the Silicon Valley Method of propping up a platform with investment capital, giving away the product for free to amass eyeballs, then trying to go public or get acquired before the investment capital ran out was a stupid and short-sighted strategy.
And, of course, the method only ever worked for those who were willing to sell their souls.
So the end of the Cult of Free was always inevitable; what is more interesting about Musk’s announcement is that it signifies that the seemingly-endless resources of Clown World are beginning to run out.
This is precisely why it is so vital to subscribe to projects such as Arktoons, UATV, and the Library. The more who do, the more that we can collectively accomplish, even on a shoestring.