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For weeks, it has been known that X (formerly Twitter) would introduce multiple tiers as part of its subscription known as X Premium. It is just one of the several changes that the microblogging platform has undergone since Elon Musk’s acquisition. Although the majority of Musk’s moves have been called draconian by users, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has not shied away from enforcing them, with the aim of making X a super app that competes with China’s WeChat. In the latest announcement, Musk has now revealed that the tiers of the X Premium subscription could be coming soon.
X Premium tiers
In an X post on Friday, Musk announced that two new tiers of the X Premium subscription would be coming soon. He wrote, “Two new tiers of X Premium subscriptions launching soon.” As suspected, one of the subscriptions would be cheaper but feature ads. On the other hand, the more premium subscription would cost more but will not have any ads. This follows Musk’s beliefs that charging users is the “only way” to make the platform bot-free.
The announcement comes a few days after X announced that it would start charging users annually to use even the basic features on the platform, including likes, posts, replies, reposts, bookmarks, and lists. It is part of X’s ‘Not a Bot’ program which is already being tested in New Zealand and the Philippines. Users will have to pay $1 annually to use X’s basic features.
Announcing this program, the official X Support account posted, “This new test was developed to bolster our already successful efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount. It is not a profit driver.”
How X users reacted
Some users on the platform have not responded well to this announcement. One user who goes by @staceriley commented below Musk’s post, “Just need to keep a free tier. Without it, audience reach will be diminished, and the best thing we have as a free speech platform will be nerfed.”
On the other hand, another user @0xRadar suggested a unique way of payment, “Enable to subscribe with using crypto. Some people cannot subscribe due to where they live, and some content creators cannot get paid out due to the payment processor.”
The introduction of tiers of X Premium subscription as well as the enforcement of a basic fee could potentially mean that the microblogging platform is basically blocked behind a paywall, where users need to subscribe to do anything except view posts.
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