Elon Musk has said Twitter, now X, may soon have a subscription fee for all of its 360 million-plus users to stop bots from slinging hate speech, but now sources say there could be three subscription tiers, including Basic, Standard, and Plus, starting at $ 8 per month or possibly lower.
Regarding the subscription fee, Musk had said: “The single most important reason we’re moving to have a small monthly payment for use of the X system is it’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots.”
Within the fee structure, Bloomberg suggests that Musk could be considering that users paying the most will see the fewest ads, but the price plans and confirmation of the tiers have yet to be released.
Recent leaks have also weighed in, saying the Basic tier will have the regular number of ads, the Standard tier will show 50% less ads, and the Plus tier will be ad-free.
Today, the Premium tier has roughly 50% fewer ads than the free tier, and at this time, we’re unsure if the free tier will stay as part of the X subscription structure.
With the introduction of fees for a previously free service, how many X users will jump ship? Perhaps this will be an attractive enough reason to keep the free tier for Musk.
But then, will Musk be fighting off hate-spewing bots if the free tier stays, which he said is the entire reason for the new tiers?
According to the BBC, X (formerly Twitter) is estimated to report revenue of $3 billion for 2023, down from $4.4 billion in 2022, another likely reason behind the new pay-to-play X tiers.
X has not released whether it will proceed with subscription tiers or pricing, but all the recent reports and leaks hint that an announcement may be coming soon.
