X Monetization Overhaul: New Rules & Requirements — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:02] monetization at X. And I personally think this is a fantastic set of news. A lot of this probably comes from the experiment that Nikita revealed back on

[00:15] June 30th. If you weren't watching, don't worry, I'll catch you up, but it's official. The monetization program at X is dead in the way we know it. I'm going to explain how it's changed. Here's the email that came in. We are going to look

[00:30] at that email. We're going to break down what's different. But first, you need a all the way scroll all the way back on your ex timeline to June 30th. And then you're going to see why one of these big changes came into place. So on June

[00:45] 30th, Nikita, who literally just stepped down from X and and uh their role at X lot of people speculated was because have had. We don't even know if they had shares. we we it doesn't matter, right?

[01:00] why they stepped down. People really like this person, you know, I thought single day they tried to improve the platform. But this was very interesting. platform. But this was very interesting. In a 3% experiment, they removed the top

[01:13] 30 highest paid revenue share accounts from the 4U timeline. And when they did that, they actually saw that both time spent and daily active usage went up. So, basically, think about it like this. If you're on X

[01:31] and there's a piece of breaking news, okay, like somebody like me who pays for a wire service, let's say I pay for a wire service, I see a piece of breaking news, I see, okay, Goldman Sachs uh reports a 7.2% passive stake in Nebius

[01:46] Group as of June 30th. Oh, that's pretty cool. All right, let's say then I take that breaking news and I throw it into X and I'm one of the first people to post it or I post it algorithmically, which I can. I I don't I actually provide this

[02:01] for free right now. I I don't I don't Yeah, you could go get this for free in the Meet Kevin app in the uh Google or Apple uh app store. You could even get want. But anyway, the point is you could use this wire service for free and you

[02:15] minute. This is what the news companies use, right? And you don't actually have to use X to get that minute-byminute news. This is why I like this. But what happens on X is usually, in my opinion, you get because of the monetization

[02:30] system, you get a lot of people who are going to share the same thing over and over and over again, and then they just quote tweet it and X basically has to pay monetization for the same piece of news over and over and over again. And

[02:42] people aren't actually contributing new value. They're just flooding your feed with the same news story and not really anything new. And I think what X is doing here is they're basically saying, "Look, we want stuff that's unique." In

[02:55] fact, when you look at the email, you could see them say here, "Breaking news, expert insights, unique experiences, creativity, and commentary that moves culture forward." In my opinion, this is basically just look, you could sum all

[03:08] you a little window dressed in terms of how they would it. I think you could literally just say, "Hey, listen. If you actually provide value, we will gladly But if you're just quoting the same crap over and over again, we ain't going to

[03:23] example. So, I posted a comment on the semi analysis article like a couple They still haven't responded to me because I think there's a fatal flaw in their article. And at the same time, while I think there's a fatal flaw, and

[03:38] because I actually read the article, you've got a lot of people like this guy, and a lot of people are doing this, they literally just quote tweet semi analysis. They screen grab one picture from the story, and then they go and say

[03:52] from the story, and then they go and say something like WTF or this is insane or something like WTF or this is insane or rocket emoji. Now, think about it. You have the semi-analysis people who took the effort to write a long freaking

[04:05] article. I disagree with the substance of the article. I haven't quote tweeted or said anything, right? But anyway, semi-analysis post their article. Now you got three people who are collectively probably getting 10 times

[04:17] as many impressions as the original writers. And so X is now paying 10 times as much money to all these knuckleheads who are just going WT, [screaming] right? X is paying 10 times as much money to all these knuckleheads and the

[04:32] people who actually wrote the story are like whatever maybe people will sign up for our you know wire our substack or whatever it is they sell right so fine now I personally think if somebody now quote tweets this and says hey there's a

[04:47] fatal flaw in your article why did you assume this which directly contradicts your assumption over here that's kind of a fatal flaw why don't you address it

[04:59] that is a way to provide more value in my opinion because rather than just you're going hey there's actually some more nuance here there's a problem here good because of that or bad because of this whatever right that's providing

[05:12] trying to do and I think they're trying to do that with Grock probably they'll speaking of Grock it's worth noting that AI infrastructure revenue obviously was the focus of uh SpaceX's last earnings but if you actually look closely ly at

[05:29] page 44 of the earnings filing, you could see that Grok and X subscriptions increased to 258 million. But while Grock and X subscriptions, so like X premium, where you get monetized or see fewer ads, well, that went up to 258

[05:43] fewer ads, well, that went up to 258 million, they actually lost on ads. They million, they actually lost on ads. They had ad growth fall. We went from 426 had ad growth fall. We went from 426 down to 367. A $59 million decline in ad

[05:57] rates. That's not good. So, whatever growth we're seeing from subscribers is getting offset by a decline in advertising. So advertising down, yeah, less money to make up for that from premium users, but

[06:11] make up for that from premium users, but if usage and uh uh time like how many days in a row you're going on the website is going down, we're causing problems. We need to fix this. And it, in my opinion, does go back to creating

[06:27] people to share slop on the platform. And I am actually very supportive of this is a really good idea. I think you should only get paid if you provide more perspective or value. Like if somebody's talking about a stock, you know, pull up

[06:41] the actual financials and add to the conversation. But anyway, the revenue effective September 7th. You'll get your final pay on September 11th. Beginning September 8th, you'll be able to apply for original content creators rewards

[06:55] certain eligibility like ID verification, blah blah blah. Uh and then this is over here what qualifies. So this is interesting. Qualified impressions are unique impressions from premium users.

[07:08] Oh. Oh, interesting. So, so you can only now get paid by impressions that come now get paid by impressions that come from premium users. Okay. On the home from premium users. Okay. On the home timeline feed where at least 50% of the

[07:21] post is visible, right? Cuz if you're scrolling and you know you only see a not necessarily count. Oh, look at that. I actually replied, [laughter] "Dude, I didn't know I was going to find my own reply comment on this." July 1st.

[07:35] So, I replied to Daily Lady. Yeah, because they copy and paste the same [laughter] I mean uh nailed it. [laughter] But, but anyway, impressions from the I mean, my ex usage has plummeted. I mean,

[07:50] partly my ex usage has plummeted because I use a wire service. I honestly I think everybody should just use a wire service. uh it's it's much faster. You don't get distracted. You could kind of keep this up uh like on another screen

[08:03] or whatever. And then you you see when the headlines come through. I mean, I know people who use the Meet Kevin app and and they're not getting charged for it. But anyway, impressions for the same account counted more than one per post.

[08:16] same person keeps going back like I've gone back to that semi-piece like five artificially generated or fraudulent impressions would not monetize. I mean, that's fair. Okay. So, what's considered original content? Well, here is what's

[08:30] not considered original. Copied content. Copied text, images, or videos copied from other people. Minimally modified. Uh, aggregating content, primarily combining news from other people with no new perspective. Yeah. A substantial new

[08:45] perspective. Content taken from other platforms and reposted by someone other than the original creator. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you'll have some new requirements now. You'll have to be a premium or premium plus or business

[08:58] subscriber. You need to have at least 500,000 home timeline impressions from verified users in the last 90 days. Oh, have at least 500 verified followers. Actively post original content. Wow. So, I mean, a lot of people are are going to

[09:14] lose a revenue stream here. And and you'll have to be continuously requirements. So, so it sort of be this this ongoing test basically on on a rolling basis. It looks like it looks

[09:27] like they're doing a rolling 90-day um uh test. And then of course, they've got a list of countries where there's eligibility. That's interesting. And That makes sense. I mean, you get like $2 distribution or whatever. Like, who

[09:41] cares? The accounting work for that just just isn't worth it. This is actually really, I think, a smart thing for X. Again, my X usage has been declining, but that's me personally. Maybe yours is up as much, but like I noticed when they

[09:54] monetized X, the value that I got from X actually declined a lot. So, I haven't posted there much. I I I did recently post a really nice piece there. Uh, but it was actually like [music] just totally original, like not anything

[10:08] anybody else had any input into. It was just about Kevin and Margin Dad is what video on that. Uh, but this is a good thing. So, I think hats off to SpaceX. I actually think it will help them sell more advertising space because the

[10:23] content will be better. So, good for them. Uh, I think this is actually a W for Elon Musk and SpaceX. >> Why not advertise these things that you knows about this. >> We'll we'll try a little advertising and

[10:35] >> Congratulations, man. You have done so much. People love you. People look up to >> Kevin Pra there, financial [music] analyst and YouTuber. Meet Kevin. Always analyst and YouTuber. Meet Kevin. Always great to get your take.