X recently announced that the live-streaming feature will soon go behind a paywall. This means that X, formerly known as Twitter, will become a channel that charges for a feature that is available for free on other social media platforms. But this move should not be considered surprising, as earlier CEO Elon Musk had said that in the coming future they will charge for the basic features of X as well.

The company posted about X, “Soon, only premium customers will be able to livestream (create live video streams) on X. This includes going live from an encoder with X integration.” It is still unknown why the company is making such changes. There has been no clarification from the company or the CEO yet.

No other information has been given. There is no information about this change or when it will happen. This move has been heavily criticized by users who use their profile on X as a video first platform. Reactions to this upcoming move have been mainly negative. The main thing is that other platforms, even those with better user interface and video players, are not charging for this feature.

This is not the only indication that X is diving into the pool to charge for more features. Earlier this year, in April, the company introduced a $1 annual fee for accessing posting privileges for new accounts in New Zealand and the Philippines. Meanwhile, Elon Musk said that this was done only for testing purposes. But this doesn’t mean that the company will discontinue it, it means that once they are satisfied, the annual fee will be applicable to all new accounts globally. This means that new users in these countries are paying for basic X functionalities, such as posting, liking, bookmarking or even reposting. He said that all this came at a “small fee”. If the feature comes to India in the future, this small fee would be equivalent to Rs 100. This also indicates a possible change in X’s strategy, moving away from a primarily ad-based model to a model that involves a mix of ads and paid subscriptions.

Unlike this time, Musk explained the move to charge $1 for the infrastructure. He said the move is aimed at “stopping the relentless onslaught of bots.” He said existing AI and troll farms can easily pass the ‘are you a bot’ test.

It will be interesting to see how users will react to the upcoming changes and fees powered by X.