Anything a platform does that reduces usage is bad for business. Twitter / X continues a sequence of questionable decisions in their latest moves to make account analytics a “Premium” feature and making “Likes” private.

After its meaningless rebrand to X and 2023’s removal of API services which further cuts off the platform from the rest of the internet, these changes continue to “fix” problems that didn’t exist before. Our opinion: X looks desperate for revenue by putting elementary analytics behind a paywall.

Organizations that have seen their Twitter metrics plummet for years due to poor user quality control (too many bots and far too many trolls) must now pay for the privilege of reading such numbers.

Many non-profits, trade associations, corporations, and political organizations have been questioning their strategy on X: is it still worth the effort? Can we reach an effective audience? Is our social media effort better applied elsewhere? Hiding the analytics and the “Likes”, a key engagement measurement, will undeniably make these strategic questions easier to answer.