Twitter chief Elon Musk on Saturday announced that the company will introduce higher subscription prices that would show less advertisements on the microblogging site, including an ad-free tier. The announcement came amid the social networking site facing major economic uncertainty since its takeover by Musk in October last year.
In a series of tweets, the Tesla and SpaceX chief said that he will address the issues of advertisements on the platform in coming weeks.
“Ads are too frequent on Twitter and too big. Taking steps to address both in coming weeks,” Musk posted to his Twitter account Saturday.
And for those who choose it, “there will be a higher priced subscription that allows zero ads,” Musk added.
Ads are too frequent on Twitter and too big. Taking steps to address both in coming weeks.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 21, 2023
The change will be radical for Twitter’s business model as till now it relied on targeted advertising to generate revenue, before launching a paid subscription service in mid-December.
But advertising has been a question mark for Twitter lately, after Musk fired about half of the company’s 7,500-strong workforce late last year. The move sparked concern that the company was insufficiently staffed to carry out content moderation and spooking governments and advertisers.
According to Musk, his strategy was to hugely reduce costs while building up revenue, and that a new subscription service called Twitter Blue, which grants users a sought-after blue verification tick for a fee, would help reach that goal.
The service, which costs $11 a month, is available on iOS and Google’s Android mobile operating systems in the United States, as per the company’s website.
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Web subscription is also available for $8 a month or, at a discount of $84 per year.
Twitter Blue is currently available in selected countries which include the United States, Canada, Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Japan.
Musk-led Twitter has been riven by chaos, with mass layoffs, the return of banned accounts and the suspension of journalists critical of the South African-born billionaire.
Musk’s takeover also saw a surge in racist or hateful tweets, drawing scrutiny from regulators and chasing away big advertisers, Twitter’s main source of revenue.