Elon Musk Restricts 99.8% of Twitter Users to VIEW Only 600 Tweets/Day
Here’s Why – The Great AI Battle Has Begun
GM DOers! 😎
Elon came out with a hammer on Saturday and announced that users are restricted to the amount of tweets they can view in a single day. 👀
Ironically, Elon’s tweet above is now the most viewed tweet ever, with over 545 Million views (If an account sees the tweet 10 times, it’ll count as 10 views). 🤯
Context: Twitter hosts 368 Million active users monthly, with only a tiny fraction (640,000, representing 0.17%) being Twitter Blue subscribers (paying $8/month).
This leaves a staggering 99.8% of users – the non-Blue subscribers – under this new tweet-viewing quota, anywhere from 300-600 tweets daily. 🙃
As a Blue subscriber, as long as you spend 14 seconds or less on a single tweet, you can doom scroll for 24 straight. That means that this view limit has 0 impact on Blue subscribers.
Unless you’re Mr. Beast, trying to hit the record 😅
But it's a different story for the 99.8%. Even if they spent 14 seconds on each tweet, they'd hit their 600 tweet ceiling after about 2.33 hours. 😨
TL;DR – This is terrible for Twitter’s users and many are calling this the death of Twitter.
So why would Elon do something like this? The answer: AI data scraping. 🤖
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Now, let’s get into the why behind Twitter’s actions. 👇
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The Why: AI Data Scraping 📃
Elon's move is less about everyday users and more about putting a roadblock on AI data scraping by major companies like Microsoft. 🛑
Typically, these big players tap into Twitter, hoovering up hundreds of thousands of tweets daily, essentially benefiting from a free, all-you-can-eat data buffet served up by Twitter's users.
Elon, being a known skeptic of AI—which he perceives as a societal threat—wants to prevent this data buffet from feeding these AI systems.
This maneuver is akin to Reddit's move from 2 weeks ago, when they blocked 3rd party apps to be used on their platform. 🚫
When Reddit did this, it forced people to stop using apps that were super handy for daily use, causing quite an uproar. That’s why several subreddits went dark to protest. 🌑
Now, this is a big bummer for users but this is the AI data war everyone’s been talking about.
Soon, all user data will be tucked behind paywalls for companies to access. Plus, it's a gold mine for data-rich platforms like Twitter and Reddit, enabling them to monetize their treasure troves of information. 🗞️
Many users argue that this is all an elaborate play to boost Twitter Blue subscriptions, but we believe it isn’t. It’s simply a race towards who builds the best AI and unfortunately, the users are the ones suffering the most in this race. (Keep scrolling to find out how you can benefit from this!)
And, at the end of the day, nobody really knows the right move at the moment. Everyone is trying to figure things out (Elon included) as we go through a period of extremely fast innovation.
However, we have an explanation that may help you understand why these kinds of measures must be taken.
Twitter Doesn’t Want To Punish You 😌
First of all, Twitter’s measures are temporary.
Second of all, Twitter's restriction is a safety measure, not a punishment scheme for non-paying users.
Data scraping, or automated systems yanking your tweets and data, is a huge security menace. 👾
Bots are wandering about, scooping every tweet, word, and user account info to stash in some mysterious database. Who's behind it? State actors, governments, political PACs, companies who try to build the best AI tools, you name it. 😱
Such scraping can REALLY hurt you as a user and Twitter as a platform. Not ideal.
So, the tweet limit is meant to be a shield. It's there to protect users and the entire Twitter network from going haywire. 🛡️
It's important to mention that Twitter's operation isn't free. With 500,000+ servers, a huge data scraping event can overload servers, leading to a financial burden that could possibly threaten Twitter's existence.
This is where Elon's notion of paid Twitter usage comes into play. If bad actors have to pay $8 to create fake accounts or to use the API, it's going to cost them a lot. 💸
And that's great news! It's a move to protect you and keep Twitter sustainable without an ad overload. 💰
So, while the $8 fee might seem steep to some, it's not there to hurt or punish you. It's a strategic step towards a secure, sustainable platform. 🕊️
Let’s talk about what you can do and how you can capitalize on this. Keep scrolling.
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What’s The Opportunity For You? 🤩
As Winston Churchill once said, never let a good crisis go to waste. There’s always opportunities out there. You just need to open your eyes to see it. 👁️
Today, we wanted to give you 3 points that we think are the most crucial for you to benefit from everything that’s going on with AI at the moment.
The following section is only available to our PRO subscribers. Enjoy 👇