Twitter to allow users to read subscription news on per-article basis next month

According to Elon Musk, Twitter users should soon be able to read subscription-exclusive stories on a per-article basis next month. The Tesla CEO described the plan as “a major win-win” both for the public and media organizations, with the latter being able to charge a higher article price.

Twitter is one of the common platforms for the media to offer their stories, and most of them come with a price. But with multiple media offering subscriptions for their services, it is impractical for an average user to pay for all of them. On Saturday, Musk introduced an idea where you can only pay when you “want to read an occasional article.” Though the billionaire said customers would have to pay higher prices per article, it should be an ideal option for users instead of paying for a whole subscription they rarely use. As expected, Twitter will have its share of this new system, but the CEO didn’t specify how much it would be. 

The news is part of Musk’s new strategies to boost the image of Twitter and monetize its different sections. Recently, the legacy checkmarks for famous users (e.g., Pope, Shakira, and Lady Gaga) were removed in hopes of promoting the Blue subscription. However, this did little help to the platform and even ruined the reputation of verified marks.

Different personalities previously criticized the subscription, pushing Musk to “personally” pay for the accounts of Lebron James, Stephen King, and William Shantner. Surprisingly, Twitter also brought back the marks of certain accounts with more than 1 million followers, including Neil Gaiman, Lil Nas X, and Richard Osman. The return of blue ticks also accidentally included a fake and now-suspended Disney Junior account (@DisneyJuniorUK), which used to tweet racial slurs and gained more than 3,000 followers after the incident. Interestingly, the new management also revived the verification marks of dead personalities, such as Michael Jackson, Chadwick Boseman, Kobe Bryant, Barbara Walters, Anthony Bourdain, and Paul Walker.

The moves are just some of the few the new Twitter management is exploring, including the rebranding of Super Follows to simply Twitter Subscriptions and new API pricing. For the former, Musk promised that “for the next 12 months, Twitter will keep none of the money.”

The company hopes to make the platform enticing for creators, but the recent events made it more repulsive for some, with past reports showing that Twitter lost advertisers due to Musk’s takeover. Musk claimed the platform is regaining this loss. Yet, according to Reuters, this is slow, as shown by data and statements from different companies.