• Twitter Blue subscribers can now publish tweets 10 000 characters long with bold and italic modifiers.
• Blue subscribers can also monetise content and make it available to those who pay them for access.
• Elon Musk has said that creators can stand to get up to 92 percent of subscription payments for the first 12 months.

After threatening to bombard us with 10 000 character tweets, Twitter has made that move and now Twitter Blue subscribers can push out full essays to what was once known as a micro-blogging social network.

The news of an expanded character limit came from Twitter Write, an official Twitter account that hasn’t been active since Elon Musk took ownership of the company.

Beyond the expanded character limit, Twitter Blue subscribers now get access to bold and italic text modifiers.

Cool.

You will also note the mention of Subscriptions in the tweet above. This looks to be a revamp of Super Follows but users can lock content off to others where it be text or video.

According to Musk, creators stand to earn up to 92 percent of what their subscribers pay.

“For the next 12 months, Twitter will keep none of the money. You will receive whatever money we receive, so that’s 70% for subscriptions on iOS & Android (they charge 30%) and ~92% on web (could be better, depending on payment processor). After first year, iOS & Android fees drop to 15% and we will add a small amount on top of that, depending on volume. We will also help promote your work. Our goal is to maximize creator prosperity. At any point, you can leave our platform and take your work with you. Easy in, easy out,” the billionaire said.

Of course, to access any of this at all, you need to pay Twitter R144 per month for Twitter Blue. We are still struck at the fact that in order to monetise content, creators have to pay Twitter. We feel that this in and of itself makes Twitter less attractive when compared to TikTok and YouTube where all you need is a smartphone, an internet connection and a good idea to start making money online.

But more than that, Twitter isn’t a good place to consume content. Long Tweets are terrible to read especially if the person doesn’t use spacing. The inclusion of bold and italics hardly serves to improve that experience. Watching video content on Twitter is a chore with buffering, quality issues and a notable lack of useful controls for the user.

Should Twitter improve the user experience, perhaps more creators will be able to leverage the platform but the platform’s reputation, the Twitter Blue restriction on monetisation and the better alternatives available mean that’s not likely.