The owner of Twitter, Elon Musklaunched a new change that will be implemented in the social network from May, which consists of the fact that media may charge users for reading each article.
He announced it through his official account, where he stated that “this allows users to no longer sign up with a monthly subscription that means paying a higher price per article when they want to read.” He also made it clear that this “should be a great advantage for both media organizations and the public”. It should be noted that this is part of a fight that Musk has been giving so that Twitter is profitable.
Faced with this situation, the British journalist James Ball wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review and listed several problems with the micropayments that the platform would make, since it is an idea that “It has definitely occurred to major publishers across the planet”.
He also stated that nowadays many readers refuse to read a story when it hits a paywall, therefore publishers prefer to have full subscribers because they generate much more advertising revenue.
Otherwise, there were opinions in favor, such as that of space expert Greg Autry, who expressed that it is a “great idea. As a frequent author in publications such as Forbes, Foreign Policy and Ad Astra, I’m often frustrated when my work ends up behind a paywall that my followers aren’t willing to subscribe to. This is the correct solution“.
