Elon Musk Teases Higher-Priced Twitter Subscription With No Ads

Twitter CEO Elon Musk believes that users are currently seeing too many ads on the platform. In a series of tweets published over the weekend, Musk said that “Ads are too frequent on Twitter and too big,” and that the company will address this issue in the coming weeks.

Musk also teased the launch and upcoming “higher priced subscription that allows zero ads.” The existing Twitter Blue subscription, which costs $8/month (or $11/month if you subscribe via the iOS and Android apps), should soon allow subscribers to see approximately 50% fewer ads than regular users.

Also, there will be a higher priced subscription that allows zero ads

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 21, 2023

Of course, Twitter users who’ve been using third-party clients such Tweetbot and Twitterrific weren’t seeing any ads… which is probably why Twitter has officially banned all third-party apps last week. It’s currently crucial for Twitter to increase its ad revenue, but the company would also be very happy if more users start paying for a subscription to see less ads.

Over the weekend, Musk also tweeted that an upcoming Twitter update will make the app stop pushing its “Recommended” algorithmic feed to all users every time they open the app. Soon, the app will remember if you were previously checking the “Following” chronological feed or if you were scrolling through one of your pinned lists.

Next Twitter update will remember whether you were on For You (ie recommended), Following or list you made & stop switching you back to recommended tweets

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 21, 2023

Another improvement Musk teased is the ability to customize the app’s top bar and re-order the “For You” and “Following” tabs, and this should also apply to pinned lists. Overall, the company is really backtracking on making its “Recommended” feed the default, and if you’ve recently found the number of ads to be problematic there should soon be some improvements on that front as well.