X is looking to try out another way to entice more X Premium subscribers, this time via a free trial, letting prospective users try out its add-on features before they pay.
Though how exactly it would work is not clear at this stage.
New code to support the X Premium free trial was spotted by X Updates Radar, with recent code string changes referring to a “free trial” period of undetermined duration. Presumably, that would enable prospective subscribers to test out Premium, and elements like its Grok AI chatbot, before buying, though some commenters have suggested that this would negate the whole purpose of X’s subscription program.
The original concept for subscriptions, as pitched by X owner Elon Musk, was to combat bots, by ensuring that real paying humans are delineated in the app. But a free trial would mean that any spammer and/or scammer could sign up, and as they continue to create more fake profiles, they could just keep activating the free trial for each one, assisting in their deception.
Which would mean that this is no longer a bot deterrent, but then again, that is also dependent on this still being part of the actual purpose of the X Premium program.
X owner Elon Musk did originally note that Premium would make bot farms way more expensive to run, because their operators would eventually have to pay to register each profile that they create, in order to be seen as legitimate in the app. But with fewer than 1% of X users signed up for Premium, that’s not the major hurdle that Elon was hoping it would become, and as a result, maybe now X Premium is more about maximizing income, and boosting exposure for its AI bot, than it is an anti-bot measure.
As such, a free trial would make sense, and it would also be interesting to see how many people would actually want to try out a free version of Premium, as some measure of the broader market for the package.
Because right now, it still seems like a fairly limited market. And while X seems convinced that its Grok AI bot will work as a further enticement, I’m not sure that there’s a huge audience of people who are really interested in integrating more AI into their social media experience.
Maybe a free trial would provide more perspective on this, or maybe X is only planning to offer it to certain users. I mean, it’s already tried gifting Premium to certain users, so a free trial does make sense. I’m just not sure that it’s going to lead to broader interest in the program, or significantly increased sign-ups, as it currently stands.
