Twitter mulls subscriptions that would rid your feed of ads

By Trevor Mogg February 8, 2021

An edit button may still be a ways off for Twitter, but subscriptions look as if they could be incoming.

Twitter is looking into the idea of letting its community pay to banish ads from their feeds, insiders told Bloomberg this week.

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A number of options are under consideration as Twitter examines different ways to boost its income.

You know things are serious when a company creates internal teams to examine a subject, with Twitter reportedly putting several on the case, one with the intriguing name of “Rogue One.”

Bloomberg’s sources said that besides a straightforward monthly or annual subscription, we could also see a “tipping” system that allows followers to throw cash the way of their favorite users, perhaps during arranged livestreams similar to YouTube. There’s also talk of allowing Twitter members to pay those they follow for exclusive content, with Twitter taking a cut of any payments.

The San Francisco-based company could also start charging a fee for the use of services like TweetDeck, its dashboard app for the management of its accounts, or for advanced product features such as “undo send.” Greater profile customization could also be added as a premium feature, with folks asked to cough up cash to make use of it.

Truth be told, the company has been toying with the idea of subscriptions for some time, but these recent rumblings — including discussion on the matter during Twitter’s two most recent earnings calls over the last six months — suggest the idea could be about to become a reality.

There’s still much to consider, however, including Twitter’s relationship with advertisers who wouldn’t be too happy to see lots of users paying money to block their messages.

If you’d prefer to avoid endless ads every time you scroll through your feed, would you be happy to pay an annual fee to banish them forever? No doubt your decision would depend on how much you’re asked to pay, a tricky topic that members of Rogue One may be discussing right now. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see if Twitter does actually launch such a system in the coming months, but as for that much-called-for edit button — don’t hold your breath.

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Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

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Twitter accused of selling your phone number to advertisers

Twitter stands accused of selling users' contact information to advertisers without their knowledge and will pay a $150 million fine as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

According to NPR, the settlement was announced on Wednesday and was reached in response to accusations that Twitter gathered its users' phone numbers and email addresses (ostensibly only for security reasons), but then sold access to that information to advertisers without informing its users.

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Elon Musk reveals who might have to pay to use Twitter

Elon Musk stands looking to his right.

As prospective Twitter owner Elon Musk prepares to take the microblogging service in a new direction, many of its 217 million active users are keen to know what exactly he plans to do with it.
Musk is the kind of guy who likes to people keep guessing, so it’s currently hard to say what will happen (though the long-called-for edit feature seems like a certainty).
However, tweeting to his 90 million followers on Tuesday, Musk made clear that he wants to keep the service free for casual users, while adding that there could be a “slight cost” for commercial and government accounts.
“Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users,” Musk wrote in the tweet posted on Tuesday, May 3.
Many had been wondering if Musk, who bid $43 billion for Twitter in April, might move the social media service toward a subscription-based model, especially as recent comments by the billionaire entrepreneur suggested a potential move away from ads.
Twitter does currently offer a subscription tier called Twitter Blue, which costs $3 a month for users in certain countries. Twitter Blue includes a few extra features such as undo tweet, bookmark folders, custom navigation, and custom app icons. Recent reports claimed that Musk was interested in reducing the subscription for Twitter Blue to $2 a month, though for now it remains at $3.
Musk’s controversial bid for Twitter was accepted by the board toward the end of last month. However, it still needs to be approved by shareholders and regulators, so it could be several months before it's finalized.
Assuming the deal goes through, here are some changes Musk has suggested that he may make to the platform once he has full control of it.

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Twitter accepted Elon Musk's bid to buy the social media giant on Monday, and we're still waiting to see two things: If the deal will hold and, more importantly, what a Musk-helmed Twitter will look like after the smoke clears. While no concrete plans have materialized yet for what new features await us in the "new Twitter," Musk has dropped a few hints over the last few weeks about the kinds of changes he'd like to make to everyone's favorite social media hellhole.

So let's take a closer look at those hints. Here are four features we might see in a Musk-helmed Twitter.
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While not quite an app feature, reduced content moderation is still a substantial change to the way users will experience Twitter. And it's a change Musk has tweeted quite a bit about. In fact, some of his tweets indicate an inclination toward relaxing Twitter's current content moderation policies in favor of his interpretation of free speech.