In its latest bid to be as inaccessible to creators as humanly possible, X has made a bold announcement. The platform announced that it would soon be putting the ability to live stream behind a paywall.
“Starting soon, only Premium subscribers will be able to live stream (create live video streams) on X,” the post read. “This includes going live from an encoder with X integration. Upgrade to Premium to continue going live.”
Will X survive without free live streaming?
Once this rule is implemented, X will be the only social media network to not offer live streaming as part of its core repertoire of free features. Remember: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, and Kick all have unpaid live stream capabilities.
With that in mind, it’s not surprising that this news went down terribly with creators on the platform.
“Bad choice,” one user wrote. “There goes any chance ppl start to stream here instead of any other platform which is $0 to stream to.”
“Nice job on being a YouTube, Twitch, and Kick competitor!” another said. “Here on X you pay $10 a month just to stream with an inferior [user interface], video player, and a non-existent live stream tab for finding streams!”
Since being taken over by Musk, X has struggled to find its place in the creator economy. Even begging MrBeast to post wasn’t enough to make the rebrand take off, and if these comments are anything to go by, X might risk alienating the very few creators it has managed to attract.
