Elon Musk, the owner of the social media platform X, has unveiled his intentions to introduce two new subscription plans for users. This announcement comes at a time when the platform is grappling with a significant decrease in web traffic.
Under Musk’s leadership, X, formerly known as Twitter and acquired by him for $44 billion last year, has undergone controversial changes. On Friday, Musk disclosed the upcoming launch of “two new tiers of X Premium subscriptions.”
The first tier will offer a lower-cost subscription with access to all platform features, but it will not eliminate ads. The second tier will be more expensive but will provide users with an ad-free experience.
Musk did not provide specific details regarding the pricing or additional features of these subscription plans. This development follows X’s recent move to charge new users in New Zealand and The Philippines an annual fee of $1 to unlock basic features like posting and user interaction.
Musk justified this annual fee as a measure to combat bots while preserving the experience for genuine users. It remains uncertain whether the $1-per-year plan is one of the two subscription options that Musk mentioned.
During the billionaire’s tenure as the leader of X, the platform has seen significant changes in its policies and branding. Content moderation standards have been relaxed, and a somewhat perplexing rebranding effort was undertaken, which notably involved the removal of Twitter’s iconic “blue bird” logo and the omission of headlines and text from news article posts.
The platform has also witnessed a shift towards a subscription-based model as a response to a mass exodus of corporate advertisers who departed in reaction to Musk’s alterations.
Currently, X offers only one subscription tier. Users have the option to pay $8 per month to access premium features, which include account verification through a “blue checkmark,” the ability to edit their posts, and the capability to share longer tweets and videos.
Users also appear to be skeptical of Musk’s approach. Global web traffic to Twitter.com plunged 14% in September compared to the same month one year ago, according to a report released this week by data analytics firm SimilarWeb. Additionally, traffic to X’s advertising platform, ads.twitter.com, was down 16.5%. social media platform
By comparison, traffic to the top 100 social media networks and communities fell 3.7% year-over-over in September. TikTok, one of X’s main competitors, saw a 22.8% surge in global web traffic.
Meanwhile, traffic to Musk’s personal account page has skyrocketed by 96% year-over-year. The billionaire uses the page to interact with users, share important updates for his various companies and weigh in on topics ranging from geopolitics to his favorite memes.