Twitter has terminated the ad-free article benefits provided to users of its paid subscription service Twitter Blue. The feature reportedly allows users of the Twitter subscription service to read ad-free articles from participating publishers.
The report also announced more content, the removal of ad-free articles effective October 31, and included the following paragraph, which seems to indicate the reasons for Twitter’s decision. “This difficult decision will allow us to pool our resources to add even more value to our members”.
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However, aside from emails to publishers, Twitter doesn’t appear to have any other announcements regarding its decision to end its paid subscription plans for ad-free articles. Meanwhile, Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, tweeted about different price points for the Twitter subscription service, which will be $8 per month.
Musk also posted a follow-up tweet outlining other features the $8-a-month Twitter Blue package will include, including “the ability to post long video and audio” and “half the amount of advertising.”
The last perk Musk mentioned, “bypassing paywalls for publishers willing to work with us,” is particularly interesting given the recent removal of “ad-free articles” and sounds like it could be a replacement for it.
As of now, Musk’s tweet doesn’t appear to provide more details about this special perk, but the “bypass the paywall” tweet seems to suggest that Blue users will one day be able to bypass participating publishers as part of a Blue subscription paywall. If that ends up being the case, the perk could be a better reading experience than an ad-free reading.
