One major point of conversation and conjecture on the internet as of late has been Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk trying to buy the massive social media site Twitter. Recently, Musk managed to negotiate the purchase of Twitter, spending a staggering 44 billion dollars to do so.
Of course, many Twitter and internet users are now wondering what the next step will be for the site’s future in the wake of Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase. Many users are divided on what Musk as owner will mean, as some are excited about the purchase and others are afraid of its implications.
On the surface, Musk is promoting a positive shift for the site. Between wanting to eradicate bot and spam accounts, authenticate human users, and promote free speech, Musk’s ideals seem very good for the site. Even Twitter’s Jack Dorsey is now positive about Musk, hoping that Musk will bring change to Twitter and bring it back in line with Dorsey’s original vision for the site. However, recent reports suggest that Musk may be pushing for monetization on the site, which is understandably controversial.
Specifically, the reports say that Musk needed to make a pitch to banks to secure loans with which he bought Twitter. Considering Twitter’s “Poison Pill” plan that attempted to halt Musk’s purchase, it was going to take a huge amount of money to buy out the site. In his pitch to the banks, Musk explained that he would make the money back in multiple ways that included reducing executive salaries, job cuts at all levels, and monetization of certain tweets.
The tweets that would be monetized are specifically tweets that either disclose “important” information or tweets that go viral on the site and the internet at large. This monetization could take many forms, but currently it seems that Musk would be charging a fee for third-party sites to use or embed the tweets on their platforms. While this change would certainly bring more money to the site, it would surely reduce the spread of information across the web; furthermore, it begs the question of where this monetization goes. While Musk attempting to buy Twitter was a lengthy process, it would be a much smaller challenge than retaining users should Twitter turn toward charging its users to view or use tweets.
Whether this change is set in stone is anyone’s guess, but the implications that monetization brings, especially in the gaming community, could be catastrophic for the site’s popularity. However, Twitter users will have to wait and see whether the site will be changed for better or worse.
Source: Reuters
