OK, it’s time to confess – I have subscribed to Elon Musk’s social network X (formerly Twitter).
“Why are you giving money to the world’s richest man?” shouted my friend.
Admittedly, she had a point, but I did it for two reasons. Firstly, because I was aware of a few fake profiles of me floating around, and subscribing offers verification of sorts.
And secondly, because I wanted access to X’s AI chatbot, Grok, and this was the simplest way to get it.
The reputation of subscribers is so mixed on X that there is an option to hide the “blue tick” that appears by your name once you subscribe.
There is an old adage “if you’re not paying for the product, you ARE the product” – meaning, if you are using something for free, then the company which owns it is taking the data you put on it and charging firms to advertise at you instead.
It’s an established and lucrative business model. “Data is the new oil!” was a bold catchphrase I heard a lot in the tech industry, a few years ago.
But perhaps that oil well is running a little low on reserves, because tech firms are increasingly looking at subscriptions as an alternative offer.
Six months ago, Meta introduced an ad-free subscription model for Facebook and Instagram in Europe. It is €13 ($14; £11) per month on mobile devices, which is about average for an online service fee. The tech giant declined to tell me how many people have signed up so far.
Read more at BBC.com
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