X is going to pay the verified to talk to each other. It’s another step towards a clickbait farm

Elon Musk has made countless changes to Twitter for everything, except what Twitter used to be. The social network, previously focused on text and today a platform video-firsthas stopped prioritizing immediacy and quality content to enhance virality and the publications of paying users (literally). In addition to having a larger speaker, paying users can earn money by publishing and generating interactions and today the system has changed. And it has done so in a way that puts X at risk of becoming an interaction farm.

How to win I made money in X. Until now, X paid paying users (not all, only Premium and Premium+) based on the number of ads that appeared in the responses to their posts. What does that mean? The greater the virality, the greater the number of comments, the more ads in the responses and the more income. The sum is simple.

Well that’s over. That’s how it has been until now, but the platform has changed the system. Through a “release” Posted by the official X account, the company has announced the “biggest update” to the creator payment program. “Payments are increasing and you will now be paid based on the interaction with your content by Premium users, not from the ads in the responses,” the platform states. As they explain in the statement:

“Ads in replies will no longer affect your payment. Instead, you will be paid based on the interaction with your content by Premium users. So, when your followers subscribe to X Premium and interact with your content , they will support you directly. And, as X Premium is growing, so will your payment.

Users paying users… That’s one way of looking at it, of course. One point of view is that, after this change, users pay Premium to be able to reward and be rewarded for published content.

The first responses to any tweet are always, always, always from Premium accounts.

…or not. Another point of view is that now X is a little more relaxed when it comes to paying. Before, if you were verified and your followers/people who interacted with your content were not, you charged based on the virality of the post. Not now. Now a post can be infinitely viral, but if only non-premium users interact with it, the creator will not make money.

That is to say, the interactions, which previously defined how “valuable” a post was, have become worth absolutely nothing and are a mere tool to make money. What’s more, the creator himself has just become a marketing tool for

One of the many Premium accounts that generate engagement based on third-party content.

“They’re going to work for me, but…”. With this new movement, X definitely becomes an interaction farm. A larger one, it should be noted. Content stops being valuable in itself and becomes valuable based on how many interactions it generates. And what content generates interactions? The controversial one, the one that provokes controversy, anger or discussion.

It is more “profitable” to publish a viral video with a controversial opinion or something that will generate debate, stolen memes, cat videos or viral TikToks downloaded without a watermark to not even cite the creator, than anything else.

And by the way, have you already seen my free OF in the link in the bio?

But not even that. Because even viral and/or controversial content is worthless if the users who see and respond to it are not subscribed to Premium. What is the problem? That the data on how many users are Premium is not public. The only official data is “how X Premium is growing” that X stated in the aforementioned statement.

Growing, but how much? What percentage of X users are premium? Because yes, when you enter the responses to a post, the accounts that appear at the top are those of premium users. Normally, they pay for it, but the fact that there are many verified users in the responses to a post is not synonymous with either that there are many Premium users on X, or that that person is followed by many Premium users, or anything at all.

The current state of X. According to the official data of Xthe platform’s usage data is the highest in history. The number of monthly active users in the third quarter of 2024 was 547.9 million, up 2% year-on-year. How many are premium? Reply to this post with 💡 and mention two friends to find out, I would say the typical interaction farm on changes.

The current estimate of its value, according to Fidelityis 9.4 billion dollars. It is a drop close to 80%.

Image | Xataka

In Xataka | I have been on Threads since its launch and against all odds it seems to me to be a much friendlier platform than Twitter