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X has introduced the Original Content Rewards Programme to increase the number of original content posted by users. However, critics argue that the programme will exacerbate the precarities of Nigerian influencers due to its reliance on premium users' followership and engagement.
On August 8, 2026, X announced the launch of the ‘ Original Content Rewards Programme’. This is a scheme introduced to increase the number of original content posted by users, including threads, X articles, multimedia content, and other forms of analysis or reactions to online conversations.
This scheme comes after a mid-July app update that separates users’ posts and reposts on their profiles and splits the view of posted videos and pictures, evidencing the platform’s deliberate shift to promoting and rewarding content creation. The Original Content Rewards Programme also replaces the X creator revenue-sharing scheme, under which earnings were partly based on an ads-in-replies model, as users were rewarded based on the impressions and engagement of ads placed below their content.
Under the Original Content rewards programme, users will now earn based on the impressions they receive in other users’ home timelines. However, what qualifies as impressions only includes views from X Premium users, including subscribers to X Premium Basic, Premium, Premium+, or Premium Business, on their home timeline feed, where at least half of the creator’s post is on their screen while scrolling.
Therefore, as with the X creator revenue-sharing scheme, the Original Content Rewards Programme also relies on premium users’ followership and engagement to earn from the platform. X’s announcement comes in the same week my article on the precarities of Nigerian X influencers’ entrepreneurship was published in the Journal of Media, Culture and Society.
In my publication, I argued that a platform revenue-sharing scheme that relies on the followership and engagement of premium users is bound to deepen Nigerian influencers’ precarities, as they earn less than their peers in high-income countries, even when the eligibility conditions are the same. This is because most premium users come from the US, Japan and European countries.
Therefore, while the eligibility requirements to monetise an account are the same for everyone, part of which is to have at least 500 verified followers and at least 500,000 home timeline impressions from verified users in the previous 90 days, the rewards are not the same for everyone. Influencers in countries with more premium users tend to enjoy higher revenue, even when they may have the same level of visibility as those in other low- and middle-income countries.
The Original Content Rewards Programme is not based on how many people see or engage with a user’s content, but on how many of those who view, engage, and follow a user are rich enough to subscribe to X.Influencers and content creators help drive conversations and engagement on the platform beyond home timelines, and sometimes, their content becomes topics that appear on the trends table or are summarised by Grok, which is X’s generative AI. Therefore, while creators may drive wider conversations for users of the platform, rewarding them based on premium users’ impressions gained on the home timeline further exacerbates their challenges.
Crucially, only 0.8% of X users are active premium subscribers. SpaceX’s May 2026 IPO prospectus put active paid subscribers at 4.4 million out of 550 million Monthly Active Subscribers as of March 31 2026.
Therefore, one can assume that less than one per cent of the total impressions of a content creator’s or influencer’s post will be viewed or engaged with by a premium subscriber, among other factors, including how active premium subscribers are, the location of the post and user, etc. This therefore means that X is basing its economic model on 0.8 per cent of its total users, a factor that will significantly deepen Nigerian influencers’ precarity, as the country already experiences fewer premium users from high-income countries. Essentially, to create a fairer rewards system for all ranges of X users and content creators, X needs to review its rewards system by country location and income class.
For example, lowering the eligibility requirements for users in low-income countries can both increase the original content posted on the platform as intended and also make users earn relative to their country of residence. In addition, X may need to review the policy of home timeline impressions derived only from premium users as a condition for monetary gain.
As a global platform, creating a fairer and more rewarding economic model for influencers and content creators will depend on how much attention is paid to its diverse user base. All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH. Nigerians can now earn as much as $15,000- $25,000 with premium domains.
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