Creators Raise More Questions About X’s Monetization Opportunities

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: X (formerly Twitter) really needs an official comms department.

Despite its best efforts, the platform keeps shooting itself in the foot with its rebuttals and shared figures, many of which contradict each other, lack context, or actually end up supporting the very claim they’re seeking to refute.

Case in point: Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal published a story which questioned X’s new creator ad revenue share program, and the viability of X’s pitch to creators. The report claims that many creators are concerned about X’s lack of transparency, its inconsistent payouts, its lack of creator management tools, etc.

X was clearly none-too-pleased with this, so it shared this update:

X’s Creator Program: Facts vs. Fiction

1. In 7 months since the creation of the Ads Rev Share program, X has paid out more than $45 million to more than 150,000 creators.

2. Creator payouts did not exist on this platform before the Ads Rev Share program.

3. Creators keep all… https://t.co/RtzQiM2D1R

— Creators (@XCreators) March 24, 2024
So, essentially, in response, X is saying that it’s paid out $45 million to creators in 7 months, via a monetization pathway that didn’t exist under Twitter. So it’s actually a really good thing, and the criticisms are not valid.

Yet, the data that X has shared actually reinforces the WSJ article’s main point.

Back in June last year, when X began paying creators for ads served in their post replies (which was 9 months ago, to be clear), Elon Musk announced that the first block payout would total $5 million, backdated to February. Then in September, 3 months later, X CEO Linda Yaccarino reported that X had paid out, in total, $20 million in total to creators via the program.

So, averaging it out, X was paying around $5 million per month to creators for ad share by September, with that initial $5 million in early payouts feeding into the $20 million total.

It’s now been six months since September, which would mean that, based on an average of $5 million per month, which doesn’t factor in any additional participants in the program, X should have paid out an additional $30 million in payments. That would take the total paid out by the program, again based on no expansion or growth in participants, to a total of $50 million shared.

But the total, as X says, is actually $5 million less than that.

Which would mean that X is paying out less over time, while as WSJ notes, several participants have also complained about having their X monetization privileges stripped without warning, and seeing their ad share payouts dip significantly.

X’s own data, which it’s using to refute this, absolutely supports the claim that it’s sharing less revenue with creators over time. So rather than adding additional context, it’s actually supporting the contention of the WSJ post.

Part of the reason for this, according to X, is that with less overall ad spend, it has less to then share with creators, and with X’s ad revenue still down by around 50%, that also makes sense. But Elon Musk recently claimed that virtually all of X’s advertisers are coming back, which should mean bigger payments for creators in future.

And as X notes, it’s also working on video ads too, presumably pre and mid-rolls in longer content. So there may be more opportunities in future, but right now, X is still a long way behind other platforms in terms of creator monetization options.

Really, it’s just a bit strange to see X trying to counter media reports with questionable numbers, which don’t show what it seems to think.

Which an official comms team would be able to sort out, and communicate with media outlets. But evidently, that’s not the way of the Musk.