User impressions determine the outcome: The background of X betting on long-form content

In early 2026, X (formerly Twitter) is accelerating its moves. Musk stated, “We are still paying creators too little, and the revenue sharing is not enough,” and last weekend launched a “$1 million article prize campaign.” The platform quickly became a “long-form boom.” Already, DAN KOE’s “How to Fix Your Life in 1 Day” has garnered over 150 million views and has been retweeted by Musk. However, the real reason behind this initiative is not just creator support but a strategic calculation around “impressions”—how much users engage with content and how long they stay—forming a core part of the platform’s strategy.

The Reality of X, Cornered by Threads

The background for Musk’s rapid push to strengthen the creator ecosystem is rooted in harsh realities. Competition from rivals has pushed the platform competition into a new phase.

According to a recent report from data analytics firm Similarweb in early January 2026, Meta’s Threads has an average of 143.2 million global mobile daily active users (DAU). Meanwhile, X has only 126.2 million. More concerning is the growth trend: X’s global DAU decreased by 11.9% year-over-year, while Threads recorded an astonishing 37.8% growth. Even in the US market, X’s 21.2 million DAU surpasses Threads’ 19.5 million, but the gap is rapidly closing, with Threads’ annual growth rate at 41.8% and X declining by 18.4%.

The same trend continues with monthly active users (MAU). Threads has already reached 320 million, on a growth trajectory from 350 million last year to 400 million. In contrast, X maintains about 611 million MAU but has lost approximately 32 million users since Musk’s acquisition.

This stagnation in user numbers directly impacts X’s lifeline—advertising revenue. Global ad revenue is projected to fall to $2.5 billion in 2024, nearly halving from $4.4 billion in 2022. A slight recovery to $22.6 billion is expected in 2025, but the overall downward trend is clear, with some agencies predicting only about $27 billion in 2027. Meanwhile, Threads’ ad revenue could reach $11.3 billion in 2026, several times X’s forecasted income.

Subscription subscribers (X Premium) also fall short of expectations. Despite significant growth in 2025, Musk’s initial goal of making it account for 50% of total revenue remains far off. This led Musk to decide to “rapidly expand creator rewards.”

Those Who Control Impressions Control the Platform

Musk’s choice to make long-form articles a breakthrough for X is not a whim but based on deep strategic analysis. The key concept here is “impressions.”

At the core of X’s recommendation algorithm is a metric called “user time without regret.” This refers to the total effective engagement and time users spend with content. Musk explicitly points out—this mechanism naturally favors long-form content. Why? Because such content can “accumulate more user seconds,” thereby increasing its algorithmic weight and boosting overall user engagement on the platform.

Long-form articles, with their depth, context, and complete storytelling, naturally extend user stay times, contrasting with the quick consumption patterns of short posts or videos. Recent algorithm updates have introduced “content format weighting,” explicitly favoring longer, more effortful, and impactful content.

The advantage of this strategy is twofold. First, high-quality long articles keep users within the platform, preventing them from leaving via external links. Second, they provide high-quality training data for Musk’s AI projects like Grok AI. In other words, maximizing impressions is not just about increasing user engagement but also about accumulating data assets.

Musk repeatedly states—“to make X the world’s best news source” and to gather “collective intelligence” in real-time, replacing traditional media. With long-form articles, users can publish “complete articles or even books.” Experts, witnesses, and deep thinkers can share their full insights directly, rather than fragmented information.

Indeed, current global reading habits are fragmented. Especially among younger generations like Gen Z, influenced by short videos, many prefer “fragmented” reading sessions of 5-10 minutes multiple times a day. However, data also shows that overall reading volume is actually increasing. Amid digital fatigue, users are seeking deeper, more meaningful content consumption. As a counter-movement, “slow immersive reading” is emerging.

Ambitions and Challenges for the Everything App

All of Musk’s efforts ultimately converge on one grand goal—realizing an “Everything App” for X. The dream is to deeply integrate into users’ daily lives, enabling chat, payments, shopping, information retrieval, and all tasks within a single platform, similar to WeChat.

But reality is tough. WeChat has over 1.4 billion monthly active users, while X has only 557 million—less than a third of that. This user base gap makes it difficult for X to generate the “network effects” it needs—meaning, the effect where all friends, family, and services are on the platform, making users reluctant to leave.

User retention rates are similar. WeChat users spend an average of 82 minutes per day, whereas X users spend only 30-35 minutes. Why? Because WeChat allows completing many “productive” tasks—chat, payments, shopping, municipal services—while X’s content consumption remains largely passive browsing, which easily triggers the behavior of “view and leave immediately.”

Musk does not want X to become TikTok. Therefore, he believes X must first shed its image as a disposable entertainment platform. By maximizing impressions through high-quality, in-depth content, improving retention, attracting high-value users, and gradually integrating more services like payments and e-commerce based on content, Musk aims to create a true “impressions” acquisition race.

Investing in long-form content and launching extraordinary measures like a $1 million prize are not just content support but part of a grander strategy centered on user impressions. How successful this strategy will be depends on whether X can truly become an “Everything App.”