Elon Musk may flip the switch to make X — the social network formerly known as Twitter — an entirely subscription-based platform.<\/p>\n
Musk brought up the idea of charging all users of X\/Twitter in a wide-ranging conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. “[We’re] moving to a small monthly payment for use of the X system,” Musk told Netanyahu, claiming that it is the only way to stamp out bots, as reported by Bloomberg’s Dave Lee.<\/p>\n
Musk has previously mulled the idea of putting Twitter entirely behind a paywall in internal conversations, according to industry news site Platformer.<\/p>\n
Currently, X’s subscription program — formerly Twitter Blue, now called X Blue, under Musk’s rebranding effort — is priced starting at $8 per month.<\/p>\n
One of the chief benefits of X Blue is getting verified check-mark status, although this summer the company added the ability for subscribers to hide the check-mark from public view.<\/p>\n
X Blue’s other benefits include the ability to edit a post within a one-hour window; a 50% reduction in ads; “prioritized rankings” of a user’s posts in conversations and search; the ability to post up to 25,000 characters (vs. the 280-character limit); and the ability to upload videos up to 3 hours long or up to 8 gigabytes in size. Musk says Blue subscribers also will be eligible to receive a share of advertising revenue, initially based on ads displayed in replies to their posts.<\/p>\n