X will pay its Premium users to engage with each other

X is making a big change to how creators can earn money from the platform. Since last year, X has shared ad revenue with creators based on how many verified users see ads in replies to their posts. But the company announced today that creators are instead going to be paid based on “engagement with your content from Premium users.”

Put another way: the more people that subscribe to X Premium and engage with content from other Premium subscribers, the more money they all make. In theory.

If I had to guess, what will really happen is that Premium users will show up in replies even more than they already are. People who subscribe to X Premium already get priority in tweet replies, and the level of that priority depends on which X Premium tier they subscribe to.

We don’t know yet if the new approach will actually lead to higher payouts for creators. While X promises that signing up for X Premium can help you “earn a living on X,” subscribers have complained about low payouts under the current terms. And X says in its creator revenue sharing terms that it will remove users from the program if they are found to artificially inflate views on their posts, but we’ll have to wait and see if that actually stops users from trying to find ways to game the system.