Formerly known as Twitter, the Elon Musk-owned social network X, has made X Pro, previously called TweetDeck, a subscriber-only product.
A number of users also took to the platform to note the changes, all while trying to access TweetDeck they were shown a popup prompting them to buy a Blue subscription.
The changes are not really a surprise, since on the 3rd of July the company revealed that within 30 days TweetDeck would be accessible to only verified users. Like a lot of Musk promised timelines, the social network got delayed in implementing the new rule by a few days.
Most newsrooms, individual journalists, researchers and social media consultants used the TweetDeck that was acquired by Twitter in a $40 million deal in 2011, to track multiple lists and trends on Twitter/X. They will now have to pay up to keep using the tool.
In the past couple of years, TweetDeck felt like an ignored product. The previous management of the social network started testing a new version of the tool in 2021, but it wasn’t rolled out to a wider audience. In June 2022, the company shut down TweetDeck’s Mac client.
Under Musk, X has been working towards making its subscription attractive with many offerings. Apart from the verification mark, which you can hide now, it rolled out the ability to post longer text and videos, fewer ads, access to encryption in DMs and ad revenue sharing.
welp tweetdeck finally went bye-bye for me and this popped up and lmao no. pic.twitter.com/z2sWXz18nx
— russ bengtson (@russbengtson) August 15, 2023
X has finally killed free access to tweetdeck
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) August 15, 2023
It’s now officially a Premium subscriber-only tool
a sales page for X Premium now pops up when trying to lead Tweetdeck.
bad news for social media managers, journalists, and power users
