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Elon Musk has talked about bringing a paywall structure for all the X (formerly Twitter) users. Musk was speaking about the need to combat vast armies of bots in a live stream on X with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister.

What this basically means is that X could become a paid platform for anyone who wants to use it. Musk’s reasons for bringing this drastic change are linked to the massive bot influx on X, which he believes when people are asked to pay for the service will reduce the influence of bots on the platform. He did mention that, unlike the X Premium subscription, the platform will have a lower tier pricing for all the users.

While he categorically talks about making X as a paid platform to prevent bots from taking over, it is quite evident that Musk has been on a mission to turn around the monetary side of the platform. X has never been on the green side of profits, in fact, Musk has reportedly claimed that the company has seen over 50 per cent drop in revenues because of limited ads and the heavy debt owed by the previous management.

There is no denying that ever since Musk took over Twitter in October last year, he has changed the look and feel of the platform. He has even rebranded the whole product from legacy Twitter to a very popular brand choice of X. He brought the premium service on X for more countries, including benefits like a verified badge, edit post button, hiding likes on the platform and more.

X has already made it harder for people to pay for its service, which costs as much as Rs 900 per month in markets like India if you take X Premium on Android, or Rs 650 per month while taking the service via the web. This isn’t the first time Musk has talked about making X paid for all users and this public statement this week suggests the change is imminent, like every other decision Musk has taken in the past few months. And if it does happen, X could likely see a major drop in the user base, especially from countries like India.