6 November 2022 by Mondo2.0

Elon Musk and the tweets that will change Social Networks

Internet is a space, a universe, in continuous evolution. Paradoxically, this concept is not familiar to many of us, heavy users of the Network. We fail to acknowledge the role of the Internet, the changes that the Network has produced in the real world, or even the new developments that characterize the Network.
This brief introduction brings us to today’s topic: after purchasing Twitter, Elon Musk decided, to put it simply, to charge a monthly fee for the Twitter Social Network.

An epochal change that everyone is talking about.

To be precise, the proposed monthly fee concerns a specific feature, namely the “blue check”, originally designed to guarantee recognizability (and, perhaps, partly the reliability of users). The monthly fee therefore concerns a very specific aspect.

The idea of paying for something other than an advertisement (or visibility) on a Social Network has shocked cyber-communities.

“Pay to use a Social Network? A monthly fee? Every month? Mandatory to have the check? Are you kidding? I’d rather delete my account!!”
“The blue check never really worked, and now they even make us pay for it!”
“Social Networks are a free space! They must remain free”

Responses like these have united influencers, journalists, entertainment personalities and ordinary cyber-users. A true plebiscite.

Yet, only a few months ago, after watching the documentary film “The Social Dilemma”, we all agreed that the free use of Web services actually concealed further methods of interaction and involvement of cyber-users, that the “Customer online is us” and, consequently, that it is necessary—indeed urgent—to find more mature ways of interacting with and using the Internet.

Thinking about it:

• We do not like free use, the extraction of our data, the tracking of our behavior, the excess of notifications on our smartphone.
• But we do not like paying to access Social Networks either; we want Social Networks for free. Which is very strange, because in the real world we pay for practically everything.

In fact, one thing does not exclude the other: users could be tracked, observed and also have to pay, but from our point of view the attempt to overturn the paradigm, to change the current “User – Social Network” relationship, is evident.

Some of the more attentive readers will remember that in more than one article we have said that the strength of the Internet, one of the main reasons why we initially all connected and felt at ease, is free, unrestricted access to services and freedom of expression. This last statement does not contradict the previous ones because, as stated in the introduction, things change, even on the Internet.

This leads us to other considerations:

• Elon Musk is a visionary entrepreneur; his career is dotted with original attempts, not always successful, to propose, design or create something different. A forerunner, a person who knows how to relaunch and rethink “traditional” tools and services.
• Twitter, the company, is not doing well at all. When a company’s accounts are heavily in the red, extraordinary solutions and new ways of doing business may be necessary: it is necessary to break out of established patterns.
• All Social Networks are not doing too well either, or at least less well than in the recent past. Musk’s move goes hand in hand with Zuckerberg’s, who for about a year has been proposing a Metaverse that, as of today, does not exist and cannot be clicked.

What if the proposal for a monthly fee were also implemented by other Social Networks?

What if paying a monthly fee were the prelude to a season of “first-class” Social Networks in which users, made more responsible by paying a fee, are more aware of what they publish?

What if, in “first-class” Social Networks, polarization, hating and online hatred were limited?

What if paying for Internet services through monthly fees became the most effective and fastest way to safeguard our personal data?

On-demand databases and pay satellite television have allowed many of us to overcome the quality limits of generalist television; they have allowed a (privileged) portion of the public not to be overwhelmed by advertising interruptions and very low-quality talk shows. Perhaps this model, with paid, elite services, is being replicated on the Internet.

We consider the “current version of the Internet” a prelude to the Network that will come in the next decades, a sort of “Beta 0.1” version followed, five years after five years, by very different platforms and services, with different levels of interaction and a progressive sense of responsibility on the part of users. Changes—we do not know which ones—are just around the corner.

Has Elon Musk opened a new season in which the best services offered by the Internet will be paid for? Will Zuckerberg’s Metaverse be paid for?

In our opinion, definitely yes; it is only a matter of time.

This will produce “first-level” and “second-level” services on the Network and, in the medium term, different levels of digital awareness and competence among the various types of cyber-users, therefore “first-level users” and “second-level users”.

The dissent expressed by users online, which is causing the loss of some important investors on the Twitter platform, will probably lead to the failure or slowing of this first commercial proposal, but a new season has nevertheless begun: the season in which using “better Internet services” will require paying a monthly fee.

Perhaps the Internet is simply going through a release transition.

Mondoduepuntozero