Twitter Will Start Allowing Media Publishers Charge Users to Read Articles
Twitter CEO Elon Musk has said(Opens in a new window) the social media platform will allow media publishers to charge users for access to individual articles they post on Twitter in May.
As Musk pointed out in a tweet on Saturday, the feature will enable users who “would not sign up for a monthly subscription” to a paywalled media outlet to pay a “higher per article price for when they want to read an occasional article.”
In his tweet announcing the plan, Musk described it as a “major win-win for both media orgs & the public.”
It remains unclear exactly when in May the feature will start rolling out and how much individual articles will cost to read. Twitter, which doesn’t have a dedicated media team and now only responds to press inquiries with a poop emoji, did not respond to PCMag’s comment request.
In his tweet, Musk did not also specify how much Twitter would be taking as commission.
As Engadget however notes(Opens in a new window), when Twitter replaced Super Follows (its feature that let users subscribe to accounts to get access to exclusive content) with Subscriptions, Musk said the company would not take any money from creators for one year, after which Twitter would take a 10% cut on subscriptions.
Twitter recently shut down its free API and replaced it with a payable one that set back enterprise customers almost $50,000 a month. Some companies including the NYC’s transport authority have refused to sign up for Twitter integration or have left the social media platform entirely in response.
Musk has sought to drive up revenue for the debt-laden company since his October 2022 takeover. Aside from reducing its workforce from 7,500 people to around 1,500, the Tesla and SpaceX owner has made blue checkmarks a
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