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Mostly seconded. Another upside is this really does put a much larger cost to bots and problem accounts. Even $1 a year is a big deal if you've got an army of

Mostly seconded. Another upside is this really does put a much larger cost to bots and problem accounts. Even $1 a year is a big deal if you've got an army of 5000 bot accounts (something pretty trivial in this environment). I'm all for things like Kagi doing this RIGHT and supposedly not selling all my data, but I've argued that companies like twitter charging for access is the path to a healthier environment. Oh and to add, earlier this year I would've bet money that if Musk started charging, it'd be WAY more. $1 a year is a very smart starting point for a whole slew of reasons, and will let them tier out their services.

rewmie 3y ago
> Even $1 a year is a big deal if you've got an army of 5000 bot accounts (something pretty trivial in this environment). I think this belief is highly misguided. Whoever is in the business of managing bot farms comprised of thousands of bots is certainly monetizing them for way more than $5000/month.
- spindle 3y ago
  Per year not per month, which of course is just grist to your mill.
- ballenf 3y ago
  Not per account. Also the point is you then need 5000 methods of payment, making correlation between accounts trivial.
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  That $5,000/mo is 5,000 payment transactions that need to come from somewhere. People running illegal or shady activities are not super fond of leaving their fingerprints all over payment gateways (this is the entire reason cryptocurrencies exist). Even if they're not doing anything illegal, they are certainly violating the TOS and tracking down fresh credit cards each time one of their accounts gets banned presents a significant logistical problem.
  - userinanother 3y ago
    Let me introduce you to privacy.com virtual card. Or slash, or stripe, or really any of the virtual cards even from Amex and citi. No issue generating 1000s of new cards and numbers. Phones numbers are a bit more expensive but still under 35c a text verification.

rewmie 3y ago

> Even $1 a year is a big deal if you've got an army of 5000 bot accounts (something pretty trivial in this environment). I think this belief is highly misguided. Whoever is in the business of managing bot farms comprised of thousands of bots is certainly monetizing them for way more than $5000/month.

spindle 3y ago
Per year not per month, which of course is just grist to your mill.
ballenf 3y ago
Not per account. Also the point is you then need 5000 methods of payment, making correlation between accounts trivial.
mvdtnz 3y ago
That $5,000/mo is 5,000 payment transactions that need to come from somewhere. People running illegal or shady activities are not super fond of leaving their fingerprints all over payment gateways (this is the entire reason cryptocurrencies exist). Even if they're not doing anything illegal, they are certainly violating the TOS and tracking down fresh credit cards each time one of their accounts gets banned presents a significant logistical problem.
- userinanother 3y ago
  Let me introduce you to privacy.com virtual card. Or slash, or stripe, or really any of the virtual cards even from Amex and citi. No issue generating 1000s of new cards and numbers. Phones numbers are a bit more expensive but still under 35c a text verification.