Not too long after purchasing the microblogging platform, Twitter, Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk recently disclosed that Twitter commercial and government users may likely have to pay to use the platform.
After he purchased the platform, there were concerns from users stating that his takeover might lead to the monetization and commercialization of the social media platform.
Just recently after he disclosed in a tweet stating that commercial and government users will pay for the platform, he has however doused the fear of many users, by disclosing that the microblogging platform would always remain free for casual users.
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In a bid to justify his move to commercialize the platform for commercial and government users, he revealed in a series of tweets that free services in the past were what led to the downfall of great businesses.
In a tweet, he wrote, “Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial and government users”.
In a reply to the tweet, he wrote, “some revenue is better than none”. He wasn’t done yet, as he further went on to tweet about what led to the downfall of the freemasons, which he wrote, “Ultimately, the downfall of the Freemasons was giving away their stone cutting services for nothing”.
Musk also suggested that the micro-blogging platform, Twitter, may charge publishers a fee to embed tweets, as he wants to steer Twitter towards subscription revenue and away from advertising. He revealed that the revenue Twitter generates is mainly derived from advertising, rather than its user base, which has been disclosed that it is not large enough to make up for its finances.
Looking at how visionary Musk is and his desire to succeed, it is quite obvious that there will be a paradigm shift as regards the monetization of Twitter. Musk could be looking to accelerate user growth as well as the advertising revenue, or probably add new features to the platform for it to generate more revenue.
One thing for sure is that even if the Twitter business may not be his concern, the billionaire entrepreneur will not want to be on the losing side, as he will seek strategies to generate more revenue for the micro-blogging platform.
He had earlier disclosed his plan to eliminate the salaries of Twitter’s board of directors, which he said could result in about $3 million in cost savings. Recall that Musk had to secure loans to purchase the platform, where he disclosed to banks his plan to develop features to grow the business revenue, including new ways to make money out of the tweets that contain important information or go viral.
I strongly have the inkling that Musk will monetize some features on the platform in the long run, because of how low it generates revenue compared to other platforms.