According to the site’s owner Elon Musk, users will be able to charge for access to their content on Twitter, “from long-form text to hours-long video,” beginning Thursday. According to Musk, Twitter won’t keep any of the revenue users generate from subscriptions for the first 12 months. After deducting app store costs, subscribers will retain at least 70% of their subscription earnings on mobile, he continued. Musk made no further technical explanations of the scheme.

How did Musk come to this decision?

Apply to offer your followers subscriptions of any material, from longform text to hours long video!

Just tap on “Monetization” in settings.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 13, 2023

Musk is competing against the newsletter firm Substack with comparable money-making alternatives in an effort to enable users to monetize their Twitter accounts. In the meantime, Substack is resembling Twitter more and more. Users may now post on a public feed thanks to the site’s new Notes function. Earlier this week, if a tweet contained a Substack link, Twitter temporarily restricted likes, replies, and retweets.

The modifications may attract additional content producers to the site or deter them from leaving. Twitter won’t take a portion of membership fees during users’ first 12 months, but this might be a strategy to increase income down the road. Google stated that it will only charge 15% for a subscription, compared to Apple’s reduction to 15% from 30% after the first year. The X Corp. subsidiary Twitter has recently had trouble making money off of its network. Since Musk took control, Twitter’s revenue from advertising, which made up more than 80% of total revenue, has decreased by 50%. Only 1% of monthly users have subscribed to Twitter Blue, a premium version that the firm is hoping would increase income.