New users to X Corp. in New Zealand and the Philippines will to have to pony up $1 a year for the privilege of using the platform previously known as Twitter.

In what is being called the “Not A Bot” program, new users will have to pay one buck if they are to be granted the most basic functions on the platform. Existing users will not be affected. The model beginning in the two aforementioned nations is not the same as X’s main subscription model that charges $8 a month – that’s for extra features. The $1 will only take people out of read-only mode.

“This new test was developed to bolster our already significant efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity,” X explained in a post on its help channel. “This will evaluate a potentially powerful measure to help us combat bots and spammers on X, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount.”

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Musk has been obsessed with bots on X, then Twitter, since he first offered to buy the company. At one point, it was looking like he was going to pull out of the acquisition because of the said bots and how transparent the former Twitter executives were being about them. In a recent wrangle with the Anti-Defamation League, Musk said bots had been let loose on the platform to repulse advertisers.

Later, when Musk and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu livestreamed a chat, the latter asked what would have to happen so the “armies of bots” on X promulgating hate speech are cut down at their knees. Musk replied that a subscription model would do the trick, charging people “a few dollars or something.”

“It is not a profit driver,” X said. Given the number of people who seem upset by the possibility of its coming to a country near them in the near future, it may drive users away from X. There’s also the possibility that Musk’s long-term plan is to get more banking details on X so he can help realize his goal of turning X into an “everything app.”

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