Archive link: https://archive.ph/jFcSY
Last month X CEO Linda Yaccarino confirmed that video calls would be coming to the app formerly known as Twitter as part of its transition into an “everything app.” Now, new code in the X app reveals that both audio and video calls will be supported. However, the feature will not be available to all X users — only those with an X Premium membership, it appears.
lines of code refer to a warning that appears when someone tries to DM another user on the app which explains that “audio and video calls are a premium feature,” and entices them to “subscribe to gain access.”
To date, X has not been able to make a compelling case for X Premium, as independent research indicated that the company has only sold roughly 1 million subscriptions
By comparison, Snapchat’s premium subscription Snapchat+ just topped the 5 million user mark. Meanwhile, analysts are forecasting Meta’s subscription, Meta Verified, will have 12 million subscribers by early next year.
Isn’t this a complete waste of money? With all the thousands of ways to make a video/audio call for free, who would want to pay a subscription for that? Both parties need to be subscribed too, the user pool is extra small. A troll doesn’t have friends to call, what’s the purpose of this?
If you’re paying for video or audio calls, you’re doing it because you want features or privacy. I doubt Twitter offers more features, and I know they won’t offer more privacy.
Everything Musk has done is a desperate move to milk a little quick cash out of Twitter’s most foolhardy users. But hey, they’ve got a huge user base, and if even 0.1% get on board it’ll be a big win, if only short-term.
That said, I think Twitter honestly might be a little ahead of the curve. Seems like the advertising bubble is bursting and I think a lot of ad-supported corporate services are going to come to the same realization soon: that they have been running an unsustainable business for years and they need radical change.
Hopefully most of them will do it more gracefully than this. I just don’t see Twitter being culturally relevant in the future. I think this is the biggest waste of social buy-in since Google sabotaged and squandered gchat.