X is Reportedly Seeking to Charge $50k for Dormant Handles within the App

Look, I get that X must expand its income streams, and I understand the logic behind charging for various elements, within the hopes of each combating bot peddlers and bringing in more cash.

But a few of the price points that Elon and Co. have provide you with are… well, they’re at the upper end, to say the least.

Today, Forbes has reported that X is putting together a brand new program to sell dormant X @handles, with a starting price of $50k.

Yes, fifty thousand dollars for the handle of your alternative.

As per Forbes:

“Emails reveal that a team inside the company, often known as the @Handle Team, has begun work on a handle marketplace for the acquisition of account names left unused by the individuals who originally registered them. In at the very least some cases, X/Twitter has emailed solicitations to potential buyers requesting a flat fee of $50,000 to initiate a purchase order.”

Which looks like loads, putting these handles beyond the reach of just about anybody but big-name brands.

But perhaps, if a few of them bite, I suppose it’s value a shot?

X owner Elon Musk has been discussing options for dormant handles since he took over at the corporate late last yr, noting last December that X could be seeking to make these usernames available for brand spanking new use.

Back in January, The Recent York Times reported that X had considered an auction system to dump the preferred usernames. Nevertheless it’s since been pretty quiet on the @handle sales front, with X seemingly moving on from the concept.

Evidently, that wasn’t the case, with X simply taking the time to formulate the structure of this recent process, which now looks set to maneuver to the following stage, with X selling usernames to the very best bidder.

Which is able to little question upset some users who’ve had their name on a selected handle, but nonetheless, with X’s popularity seemingly in decline, it’s hard to see many individuals or brands being willing to fork out $50k for a better-suited name.

As noted, under Musk, X has been keen to explore recent revenue streams, as he looks to get the business back within the black, and on a path to becoming a more viable, long-term option.

The predominant push here has been cost-cutting, with Musk culling 80% of the app’s former staff, while X has also implemented higher costs for API access, and recent charges for X Premium, including its $1,000 per thirty days gold checkmark package for brands.

Which also seems beyond the realm of viability for many brands, though X’s pitch is that companies that pay also get additional exposure advantages, which makes it value $1,000 per thirty days in comparable ad spend.

But nonetheless, X has been giving the gold tick to all brands that spend $1,000 per thirty days on ads, negating that premise, because the only way it will be of value is for those who weren’t already spending that quantity in the primary place. More recently, X has informed verified organizations that it can cut them off from this system in the event that they don’t sustain their ad spend.

Overall, there does appear to be a disconnect between what X thinks its various offerings are value and what users are willing to pay. Fewer than 1% of X users are paying for X Premium, and while it has now added some recent pricing tiers for this system, so as to entice more interest, it’s hard to see this catching on, and becoming a significant consideration for the overwhelming majority of the platform’s 244 million energetic users.

X even seems to have conceded this point with its recent program, charging recent account sign-ups in Recent Zealand and the Philippines $1 per yr in the event that they wish to post or engage within the app. That’s a more viable fee, though even then, I’m guessing that the majority people won’t pay. 80% of X users only ever read posts within the app, without engaging in any way, and for those who force more people to pay for the privilege, it seems more likely that much more of them will just follow reading, with the eventual consequence being fewer posts within the app, for not much return.

But money’s not likely the predominant objective on this effort. Elon is convinced that charging a fee is the one way forward for X, and social media normally, within the battle against bots.

The argument makes some sense, but at the identical time, X can also be rolling out an ID verification program to substantiate that real individuals are behind accounts. That will be one other technique to combat bot profiles, nevertheless it’s currently only available to those that are signed as much as X Premium.

So, by Elon’s logic, paying profiles are real people, and people real people can double confirm that they’re real by undertaking this extra ID verification element. But non-paying users can’t do it.

It’s contradictions like this that hint at one other motivation for X’s payments push, like perhaps connecting a checking account to user profiles to expedite its shift into payments, shopping, etc.

It’s hard to know exactly what the longer-term view is, but X continues to hunt recent methods for squeezing more cash out of users, for anything that could be deemed as being of value within the app.

So for those who actually need that cool @handle, higher go have a word to your bank about extending your mortgage.