TweetDeck might be becoming a paid feature

Twitter is reportedly planning to make TweetDeck a paid feature that’s exclusively available for Twitter Blue users.

First launched in 2008, TweetDeck has long provided a way for Twitter power users to look at multiple timelines, users, and trends through easily manageable columns in order to save you from opening up a litany of tabs and/or web browsers that’ll clutter up your desktop. 

While this alternative Twitter client has been free since its launch, it now appears that it won’t be staying that way forever, as Twitter is reportedly planning to make TweetDeck a feature that’s only available to the Twitter Blue subscribers.

Twitter has yet to confirm this frustrating plan for itself, but we have seen a growing pile of evidence pointing towards it. Most recently security researcher Jane Manchun Wong took to Twitter to claim that the social media giant was making a new signup page for the TweetDeck service which markets an “ad-free experience” as a core selling point.

This selling point suggests that an ‘ad-full’ version of TweetDeck may be on the cards, however, that may not be the case as previously Jane Manchun Wong claimed to have discovered code within Twitter that indicates you’ll need a Twitter Blue subscription to access the alternative client.

Twitter is filling in the new @TweetDeck signup page that they’re working on. Two new highlights:

1. A link for “the legacy version of TweetDeck” (even though it might be deprecated at some point in the future)

2. “Ad-free experience” being marketed as the selling point 😛 https://t.co/XP6sYsTUGM pic.twitter.com/fRc0ujZ7o2

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) March 30, 2022

Available for $2.99 (or its regional equivalent) a month, Twitter Blue offers users a range of features that it would definitely be nice to have in the regular version of Twitter such as an undo button, a reader mode, new customisation options, and bookmark folders. 

Despite how useful an undo button would be, none of these features quite compare to the convenience and practicality that TweetDeck provides, so it’s no surprise that Twitter is thinking about rolling it into Twitter Blue to make the monthly subscription service that much more enticing.