Elon Musk stated today that X (Twitter) will launch soon two new premium levels, confirming the rumors. What is it about?
Elon Musk launches two premium modes on X
The owner of the social network, Elon Musk, said that one tier will cost less than the current $8 per month plan, but it won’t reduce advertising. The other tier will be more expensive and will remove all ads. The current premium plan promises to show “half advertising” to subscribers. In any case, Musk has not declared the prices of these new levels.
The reason why X features two new premium levels
Why did X decide to launch the new premium modes? According to Bloomberg, it appears that the platform is testing more paid plans for get more revenue.
Musk and everyone else working on it are trying new ways to increase X’s revenue. Earlier this week, the company began test a $1 per year plan for new users in New Zealand and the Philippines for basic features like publishing, linking and republishing. The company said that this move aims to reduce the number of bots on the platform and does not want to be seen as “a profit driver” at all.
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2023
Paid X: the two steps
We seem to be moving towards the era of paid social media. The streaming platforms have started, remodulating the rates upwards and eliminating (for example the case of Netflix) the basic plan without advertising. And it seems that Meta is also thinking about a monthly fee for access to Instagram and Facebook. A similar idea came to Elon Musk a few weeks ago, in a public meeting which – in light of recent events – is disconcertingly relevant.
Musk wants to defeat bots
Musk had a livestream meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. AND the discussion turned to the possibility that trolls can amplify anti-Semitic hate speech. Then the number one of X said: “The main reason why we are considering paying a small monthly fee to use
The meaning is that registration, however small the amount requested, involves entering credit card details, and would therefore close the doors to bots. Which, let’s remember, are fictitious accounts governed by software (and are the reason for the long back and forth that preceded the acquisition of the then Twitter by Musk himself). The immediate reaction was negative: thousands of users threatened to leave the social network. But now Elon Musk is back talking about paid X. And it’s more than a hypothesis.