Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, rolled out two new subscription plans on Friday. One, dubbed Premium+, is designed to give users an ad-free experience on the site. The Premium+ plan, priced at about $16 per month, includes all of the tools and features offered by the platform minus the ads. It will also boost the visibility of user’s replies on posts, the company said in a post on the platform. It will, however, be available only for users accessing the platform through a web browser for now, it added.
It’s the latest move in an ongoing series of changes to the social network since Musk took over as CEO last year. The billionaire has instituted many new features and changes, including loosened content moderation standards and a head-scratching rebrand that eliminated Twitter’s iconic blue bird logo. The company is struggling to combat a rise in disinformation on the site, and last week, it was reported that it has cut half of its staff in North America who work to stop the spread of fake news.
But despite the controversy, the site remains one of the most popular on the planet. In September, the X website was visited nearly 5.9 billion times, according to Similarweb. And, despite the controversy, Musk has a firm grip on the platform’s brand. Last month, he hosted Benjamin Netanyahu, the conservative Israeli prime minister, in a livestream on the service and has promised to host politicians from all political affiliations.
Earlier this month, X started testing a fee-based subscription tier called Not A Bot in two countries — New Zealand and the Philippines. It charges new accounts a dollar annually to prevent them from being mistaken for bots. It explains the charge will help “reduce spam, manipulation of our platform, and bot activity.”
The company has also been trying to monetize the site in other ways. It has begun sharing ad revenue with some Premium users, a move that some say has doubled their payouts. And it has been exploring a potential move into peer-to-peer payments on the site, with Musk hinting in mid-July that such an effort may soon be underway.
The Premium+ plan and Not A Bot initiative are the latest moves in an ongoing push by X to grow its subscription revenues while the company’s advertising business continues to struggle. It has also tested new functionality like video and audio calling on the platform. Musk has previously discussed his vision for X as an all-in-one app that can communicate with others, consume and create news, and even make purchases or pay fines. This ambition reflects the type of multifaceted application that has long been used in China, where WeChat is integrated into users’ day-to-day lives and is part of why the company is referred to as a “messenger” rather than a social network.
