X Will Pay Verified Profiles to Engage With Each Other. This Is Just Another Step to Make the Social Media Platform a Clickbait Farm

X owner Elon Musk has made numerous changes to the social media platform, transforming it into something entirely different from what it used to be. Once centered on text, it’s now a video-first platform. The focus has shifted from immediacy and quality content to promoting viral posts and paid user interactions. In addition to having a louder voice, paid users can earn money by publishing and generating engagement. The system has changed, and it threatens to turn X into an interaction farm.

How people used to make money on X. Previously, X paid users (not all, only Premium and Premium+ members) based on the number of ads shown in the replies to their posts. The logic was simple: The more viral a post, the more comments it received, which meant more ads in the replies and, consequently, more revenue.

Well, that’s over. Until now, it’s been good, but the social media platform has changed its system. In a “statement” published by the official X account, the company announced a “major update” to its payment program for creators. “Payouts are increasing and you’ll now be paid based on engagement with your content from Premium users, not ads in replies,” it said. As explained in the statement:

“Ads in replies will no longer impact your payout. Instead, you’ll be paid based on engagement with your content from Premium users. So, when your followers subscribe to X Premium and engage with your content, they support you directly. And, because X Premium is growing, your payout is too. The more Premium subscriptions overall, the more revenue you earn.”

Users paying users… That’s one way to look at it. Another way is that, after this change, users will be paying for Premium to both reward and be rewarded for the content they post.

…or maybe not. Another perspective is that X is now more hands-off with payments. Previously, if you had a verified profile and your followers or people interacting with your content weren’t Premium, you still got paid based on the post’s popularity. Now you don’t. A post could go viral, but the creator won’t earn anything if only non-premium users engage with it.

In other words, the interactions that once determined a post’s “value” have become meaningless, serving only as a tool for making money. Additionally, the creator has essentially become a marketing tool for X, as they now need Premium followers to earn revenue from their posts.

“I’m going to get called out for this, but…” With this new move, X has definitely become an interaction farm—a bigger one. Content no longer holds inherent value, its worth is now based on the number of interactions it generates.

And what kind of content sparks interaction? Controversial posts that provoke anger or debate, stolen memes, cat videos, and viral TikToks reposted without a watermark or credit to the original creator.

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But even that doesn’t cut it. Viral or controversial content is worthless if the users engaging with it aren’t Premium subscribers. What’s the issue? The data on how many users pay for Premium isn’t public. The only official information we have is that “X Premium is growing,” as X claimed in the earlier statement.

Growing, but by how much? What percentage of X users are Premium users? Sure, when you check the replies to a post, the accounts at the top are Premium users. They pay for that visibility. However, the presence of verified users in replies doesn’t necessarily mean there are many Premium users on X—or that many of them follow the person who posted.

The current status of X. According to official data, the number of users of X are at an all-time high. The social media platform had 547.9 million monthly active users in the third quarter of 2024, a 2% increase year-over-year. But how many are Premium users? Reply to this post with 💡 and mention two friends to find out—sounds like the typical engagement-bait tactics on X.

As for the company, Musk bought X for $44 billion in 2022, took it private, and made significant changes.

According to Fidelity, the current estimate of X's value is $9.4 billion, a nearly 80% drop.

Image | Julian Christ (Unsplash)