Two options: either it will stop showing ads (in that case, interesting) or payments are used as an easy way of ID verification.
Earlier they were rumoured to require ID verification so I think it's that. Musk seems vaguely anti free speech in practice plus he might think getting rid of bots will help raise value for advertisers.
Tired of being the product? Now you can also pay while being the product!
Musk was never a free speech absolutist. He claimed he supported 'legal speech'. Which turned out to be a big fat old lie. The guy is a state actor. People like that are never for free speech and lie all the time.
Also, to be fair, there was time before musk ( like 10 years ago ) when twitter and much of social media had some semblance of free speech. I don't think that era is ever coming back.
I like the old twitter. The good thing about them was that unlike Musk they didn't try to create an image of being super pro free speech, they just didn't care to the extent possible.
I might agree in a way. Back then there were anonymous accounts, now there won't be but also Overton window is wider (I reported a Nazi non-sarcastically posting Hitler meme in race related topic once and Twitter's response was "all is OK"). You can say whatever you want but beware that it can be traced to you through your payment (so, self censor)
But what I would hate is paying for the privilege of seeing ads. I'd have to quit...
I am seeing many ads in simplified chinese, fwiw. Never once pre-Musk, so this is big. I think the opposite, it's cozying up to CCP and wants to be unblocked in China. Big market. Second biggest for Tesla, too. He won't risk both by alienating the party. When values are up against financial interests...
Earlier they were rumoured to require ID verification so I think it's that. Musk seems vaguely anti free speech in practice plus he might think getting rid of bots will help raise value for advertisers.
Tired of being the product? Now you can also pay while being the product!