Sunday 22 October 2023

X to go Premium

Elon Musk has said his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, will launch two new tiers of premium subscriptions. "One is lower cost with all features, but no reduction in ads, and the other is more expensive, but has no ads," the billionaire said in a post on XIt comes as the firm started charging new users $1 in New Zealand and the Philippines for accessing the platform. Mr Musk did not provide more details on the plans. New users who opt out of subscribing will only be able to take "read only" actions, such as reading posts, watching videos, and following accounts, the company said in its website. It is not clear if there will be any free options. Mr Musk has long said that his solution for getting rid of bots and fake accounts on the social media platform is charging for the service. Since taking over the firm in October last year he has looked to incentivise users to pay for an enhanced service, which is now called X Premium. Some users now opt to pay $8 per month for the blue check subscription service. Other big tech companies have also experimented with a mix of ad-supported and subscription plans. While Alphabet's YouTube has both paid and free, ad-supported ones, Netflix's ad-supported plans are also chargeable, though at a lower price.