Since October 2022, when Elon Musk bought Twitter for over €40 billion, the platform has gone through different changes. And many ask what is up with Twitter…
Let’s summarize it a bit for those who do not know what Twitter is good for. Twitter is a service that lets you stay in touch with your friends, loved ones, and colleagues by tweeting updates about your day or just sharing your overall thoughts. On top of that, you can connect with any other Twitter user around the world! Your tweets can include photos, videos, links, and simple text. The platform used to be free for general users, only charging businesses that wanted to advertise their content using Twitter Ads
What has happened since Elon Musk took over?
Right after Elon Musk bought the company, he decided to let the operating board of directors go and made the company private. Therefore, he had a free hand and was able to do whatever he wanted with the platform since then.
For instance, he decided to unban some of the controversial and banned accounts to promote free speech. Musk is such a fan of free speech that he expressed that he would say whatever he wanted, and it does not matter if he loses money because of it.
Next, more than six thousand employees, which was about 80% of the staff, were laid off which resulted in the company facing many lawsuits due to not fulfilling conditions that were agreed upon with the former employees.
It was also reported that the platform lost its top 1.000 advertises and because of that lost 65% of its ad revenue. Some stated, the reason being Musk´s actions regarding unbanning controversial accounts.
One of the biggest changes Musk introduced is Twitter Blue. It is a paid subscription service that has extra features created to improve user experience and increase the quality of conversation on Twitter. Those who choose to pay for the feature get to see fewer ads and personalize their own experiences on the platform with the possibility of editing tweets, text formatting, different app themes, or having more characters when writing a tweet. On top of that, subscribers of the service will get a blue verification badge. This badge was previously reserved for companies, celebrities, government accounts, content creators, etc. Therefore, now that is available for those who pay, it has lost its prestige. Twitter Blue costs 8$ per month for web users and 11$ per month for app users.
Just a few days earlier, new measures were introduced, and the users are again, not happy. The platform will now limit the number of tweets the users can view per day. After running out of the limit, the access to the platform is blocked.
Those who pay for Twitter Blue and are therefore verified users can see almost 6000 posts per day. On the other hand, unverified accounts will be able to read 600 posts per day. After initial complaints by angry users, Elon argued that the restrictions are only temporary and that the limit will be raised by 400 posts for unverified accounts and 4000 posts for verified accounts.
This limitation brings headaches not only to users but also to the advertisers as their ads will suffer from less engagement and reach as they will not be shown to the users. With unsatisfying campaign results, more advertisers may either stop using Twitter Ads or decrease their ad budgets, which either way will lead to less revenue for the platform. As mentioned above in the article, some of the biggest advertisers have already left the platform due to disapproval of the direction Twitter is going under Elon Musk’s leadership.
After many changes to the core functioning of the platform, the users grow more and more dissatisfied, how much longer until they eventually stop using the app and move to another platform??
Let´s see what the future holds for Twitter.
Are you a Twitter user? What do you think about the platform’s future? Let us know!
