Elon Musk has a plan to tear down newspaper paywalls with Twitter

Eight dollars a month – the equivalent of 8 euros – to have the sblue tip on Twitterthat small icon that certifies the identity of the user it is associated with.

And to say goodbye to paywalls of information sitesthat is to say the subscription required to consult the articles and contents of the major newspapers.

Among the many tweet of the entrepreneur who illustrate, practically live, his ideas and plans for the future of the social network purchased for 44 billion dollars, there is one that is particularly interesting the world of publishing and its readers.

Twitter Blue at $ 8 a month will allow us to “overcome the paywall of publishers who want to work with us”.

In short, Musk would be willing to implement that revolution that has not yet succeeded in publishing: create a content distribution model that is inspired by that designed by Netflix for movies and television series and by Spotify for music.

It is not a new idea and above all it is not an idea far from reality. The same publisher of Repubblica and other Gedi newspapers (of which the Italian Tech hub is a part), John Elkann, declared in 2020 that “we, in the twenty-first century, must strive to give our readers an experience similar to that which expect from 21st century companies such as Amazon, Spotify or Netflix. Those are models to which we must aspire for the distribution of digital content and attention to users ”.

The plan for publishing is something Musk has been thinking about for months, as evidenced by an unpublished clip of an interview from last May published by The Kilowattsa team of electric car enthusiasts who met the entrepreneur in one of Tesla’s Gigafactories.

At the time Musk, who had just formulated an offer to acquire the social network but was far from closing the deal, had also talked about Twitter and the relationship that could exist with the large newspapers that are struggling to grow subscriptions.

“There are many publications that want to increase subscribers – Musk said – but there are also many people who will never subscribe, for example, to the Philadelphia Inquirer. However, the Philadelphia Inquirer does a great job, and it may happen that one of its reporters is right at the center of the news. And that his article ends up on social media and that everyone copies it. Maybe someone would have read the article on Inquirer without subscribing. “.

And what could it be the solution, according to Musk? “Paying the single item – he says – 10 cents, 15 cents or 20 cents. I would pay 10 cents to read the article. This would work, in my opinion, no one would lose out ”.

In short, Elon Musk is convinced that the 8 dollars for the blue check will allow the company to “Pay checks” – as he told the writer Stephen King who complained about it – and to distribute part of the revenues to the publishers who adhere to the initiative and also to the content creatorthose who enrich the value of the platform with their original content.

Before Musk even came, Twitter had launched in some countries – USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – a premium service called Twitter Blue. For $ 4.99 a month, users can access special features, such as read articles from partner newspapers without advertising. This feature was removed on October 31st.