Since Elon Musk stepped through the door at Twitter, he has made some pretty significant changes, for a start it's now called X (although most still call it Twitter, let's be honest). But he has also made plenty of changes when it comes to monetisation of the platform too.
Aside from the infamous changes to the blue tick verification system, it looks like soon new users will have to pay a yearly fee to post on the site too, supposedly to reduce the number of bots on the platform. But it doesn't stop there.
Elon Musk has tweeted that there will be two new tiers of X Premium coming soon. As it stands, this £8/$11 a month subscription service gives you the blue checkmark as well as a host of extra features including the ability to edit posts. Subscribers are also exposed to only half as many ads.
Two new tiers of X Premium subscriptions launching soon. One is lower cost with all features, but no reduction in ads, and the other is more expensive, but has no ads.October 20, 2023
However, that is now looking likely to change. Musk's latest post details that there will now be an even more expensive version of the service which has no ads at all, as well as a cheaper one with all of the features, but no ad reduction from a standard account. Essentially this will create three tiers of subscription. Some are worried about this affecting visibility of tweets on the platform for free users but there is no word on this at the moment.
We don't currently have any pricing information but an ad-free X experience would be nice. If it's the additional features that are the main appeal and you can tolerate the ads then the cheapest subscription sounds like a decent option. Alternatively, you could just move to a different platform like Threads which has some paid X features for free.
While it's nice to see X making changes, we do kind of wish that Musk would just leave things alone for a little while to see how they settle.
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Andy is T3's Tech Staff Writer, covering all things technology, including his biggest passions such as gaming, AI, phones, and basically anything cool and expensive he can get his hands on. If he had to save one possession from a fire it would be his PlayStation 5. He previously worked for Tom’s Guide - where he got paid to play with ChatGPT every day. When it comes to streaming, Andy will have his headphones glued in whilst watching something that will make him laugh. He studied Creative Writing at university, but also enjoys supporting his favourite football team (Liverpool), watching F1, teaching himself guitar, and spending time with his dog.
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