Elon Musk is seeking to make his subsequent large change on the platform previously often known as Twitter, with Musk reiterating his plan to take away the reply, like and re-share buttons from X posts in-feed, leaving solely the entire view depend and time posted.

As you’ll be able to see in these examples, on the left is the present put up format on X, with the engagement buttons alongside the underside of the put up. Quickly, in keeping with Musk, X will change to the put up format on the appropriate, with no motion buttons in-stream, and solely the view depend and put up time displayed on the prime proper.

Musk says that this can make the feed “very clear”, whereas X may even implement new motion controls to reply to posts:

• Swipe proper to answer
• Swipe left to Like
• Faucet and maintain for all different actions

Musk says that the entire common put up metrics will nonetheless be viewable if a person faucets into a person put up. However in-feed, you’ll solely see the appropriate instance.

Which is able to undoubtedly affect X’s engagement metrics, and we all know this, as a result of it’s already occurred throughout previous Twitter experiments.

Again in 2020, within the lead-up to the U.S. election, Twitter really eliminated the choice to retweet a put up fully for U.S. customers, referring individuals to cite tweet as an alternative, as a part of a broader effort to fight the amplification of false experiences. Which labored, with Twitter later reporting that it helped to scale back the unfold of false claims, although it additionally brought on a 20% discount in tweet sharing total.

Primarily based on this, it could make really sense for X to take away the retweet button, or cover it behind an additional click on, to be able to gradual the amplification of deceptive experiences. However it would additionally scale back X’s utilization metrics, which may affect total platform sentiment.

Perhaps Elon Musk doesn’t care about that, and perhaps, the precise consequence will probably be higher ultimately. However both means, it would have an effect,

For context, again in October, X reported that, of the five hundred million posts that the app facilitates day by day, 300 million of them are quotes and reposts.

Nearly all of X engagement comes by way of interplay with different posts, quotes and re-posts, and eradicating these as up entrance choices on posts goes to scale back that engagement.

And if individuals like posts much less typically consequently, that’ll additionally imply that X has much less interplay knowledge to go on, to be able to personalize feeds, whereas any discount in replies may even affect creators in X’s advert income sharing program.

I might guess that every one of those metrics are going to take a success because of them being much less seen, whereas not having the ability to see a reply depend in-stream may even lower the chance that customers will faucet by means of to search out out what individuals are saying.

So actually, it’ll probably be a two-pronged affect: For one, it’ll scale back engagement within the app, however on the identical time, perhaps that’s a very good factor, when it comes to total engagement well being.

Nevertheless it’s X that should promote that to those that’ll query why its utilization stats are declining.

Actually, like most of Musk’s modifications, it looks like an pointless step, however then once more, Twitter by no means actually made cash, and issues want to vary to be able to re-align the platform in a distinct course.

I’m undecided that this modification will probably be for the higher, nevertheless it’s all a part of Elon’s grander imaginative and prescient for the app, which is able to ultimately see it turn into his “every part app” that caters for all types of use instances and features.

However proper now a minimum of, development on X just isn’t going effectively.

Regardless of Elon and X CEO Linda Yaccarino making numerous claims about “report utilization”, X additionally hasn’t added any new customers in over a 12 months. It’s doable that these remaining within the app are spending extra time there, and X nonetheless stays the most suitable choice for actual time dialogue in most niches. However I wouldn’t say that the platform is enhancing, and as these numbers stagnate, X is unlikely to lure again its key advert companions.

If X engagement additionally declines, that’s one other not-so-positive sign, regardless of how X tries to border it.

And with X advert income nonetheless down by 50% since Musk took over, the platform continues to be not getting cash, even with drastic workers cuts.

At some stage, that can turn into a extra important concern, as a result of even with Elon being among the many richest individuals on this planet, there will probably be questions as to how lengthy you retain pouring cash right into a enterprise that provides no return.

On this context, altering X put up engagement buttons is one other dangerous transfer. Nevertheless it’s additionally completely in keeping with Musk’s Icarian administration strategy.