Blue check, again

I’m backkkkk. As a paying subscriber for X/Twitter. Previously on Premium ($11/m), now on Premium+ ($22/m). Not forgetting a creator subscription to Elon Musk for ~$5/m. So that’s a total of $27/m.

Why though? What made me return, after all the hoohaa about quitting the blue check mark?

The main thing is I simply miss writing long form tweet too much. I remember this was the one thing I mentioned I will miss when I cancelled my Premium sub last year. It’s great fun to be able to be more expressive, share more nuance and ideas. explain myself better, clearer. Simply to play with words on a larger canvas. The fact that X is pushing a new feature called Articles soon also got me curious enough to re-consider coming back to Premium. Articles are like blog posts on X, with nicer text formatting, a better editorial and reading experience.

It’s all the long form stuff. The kind of thing that we do here on Lifelog.

I guess that’s why I went back.

Of course, bonus points if the reply boost and ad share works out. But those are not the dealmakers.

Side note: Why the sub for Elon Musk? It’s not like the the world’s richest man needs the money. It’s not. The sub is an experiment to see if the algo would boost his subscribers reach in any way. I noticed many folks with great reach and frequent viral tweets tend to have a sub for him. Not saying it works for sure, but well worth an experiment to test it out!

But seriously though, paying almost $30 a month is a bunch of money for a dang social media app. Social media scheduler tools don’t charge that much. Even ChatGPT—at $20/m—is cheaper! And these tools all provide value many times over. I mean, I do get value from X – the connections, the exposure to leading edge ideas, hanging out with smart, motivated people. All these are what makes being active on X a great asset. Underrated, in fact. Some built their entire business on X. Others use it as a distribution channel. Some others get paid ad share on X anyway, so the Premium sub is like it’s free. Me? None of the above. And $30 per month?!

I do hope the return on investment pans out. I’m on a monthly plan anyway, so I reserve the right to change my mind any time haha.

But for now, I’ve savour the newfound freedom to be able to write more on X.

And that’s good enough for now.