X is Considering Removing All Engagement Counts and Buttons on Posts, with Only ‘Views’ to Remain

Okay, that is going to take some consideration.

Yesterday, recent off of revamping hyperlink previews on X, which now sees preview playing cards solely show the header picture, proprietor Elon Musk made another announcement about the way forward for the X UI.

The entire interplay counts and motion buttons, besides the views counter, which X added again in December (additionally on the request of Musk), will quickly be gone from view in feeds, and can solely be seen throughout the put up particulars, i.e. if you increase a put up.

So, ultimately, posts in-stream will appear like this:

Which appears flawed, in a spread of how.

For one, it’ll cut back put up engagement, which we already know primarily based on Instagram’s take a look at of hidden like counts again in 2019. Analysis confirmed that general put up interactions declined considerably for influencers who had been within the areas the place the take a look at was carried out, with the dearth up upfront metrics instantly altering consumer behaviors.

You’d presume related impacts on whole re-posts, with peer actions having at the very least some impact on broader behaviors.

That will not be a nasty factor, as we should always all be basing such on how we personally reply, not how others have interaction. However with likes and retweets additionally having an affect on put up attain, as per X’s open sourced algorithm, you may wager that numerous platform influencers, who are actually seeking to maximize engagement with a purpose to enhance their advert income share, might be none too happy if that is carried out. 

Instagram additional famous that folks typically use like counts ‘to get a way for what’s trending or standard’, and taking them away impacted this. X is the house of real-time engagement and traits, so that may probably be much more of an element on this case.

Basically, eradicating the fast response choices and counts will inevitably see them used much less. And with X just lately revealing that almost all of exercise in its app is by way of re-posts and quotes, that’ll probably see general exercise within the app decline, by quite a bit.

From one perspective that might be a optimistic, with previous analysis suggesting that re-posting, and the convenience of re-sharing a message within the app, enormously amplifies misinformation. So perhaps such a change would restrict the unfold of pretend information, however it’s X that’ll have to promote its advert companions, and customers, on the idea that much less engagement is definitely a great factor.

For context, X says that it at present sees 500 million posts per day, with 300 million of these being re-posts and quotes.

Relying on how that is enacted, it may additionally affect put up sharing, with the share icon more likely to additionally get much less emphasis within the up to date show, which might additionally restrict expanded dialogue and interplay.

X has additional clarified that it will be looking to implement more gesture controls instead, like double-tap to Like, and swipe to answer. However I can’t see that being as efficient, whereas the elimination of the engagement numbers may arguably be the larger affect.

However on the flip aspect, may it work?

The advantages could be much less competitors on self-importance metrics, with attain changing into the principle focus. That might put extra emphasis on the put up content material itself, whereas it may also truly drive extra direct put up interactions, in phrases expands, click-throughs, and so forth.

The swap to solely view numbers would additionally convey X extra into line with YouTube’s metric show, and with X seeking to put extra emphasis on video content material, that may additionally make sense.

However it’d be an enormous shift, which might take a while to get used to for a lot of customers.

The issue with that’s that X wants to maximise its income, with a purpose to get again to break-even, and even past that, because of the firm now being saddled with billions in debt. With this in thoughts, can X climate decrease than anticipated efficiency, and the resultant impacts, within the quick time period, until consumer behaviors re-align with this new show?

Basically, it’s not exhausting to foretell what’s going to occur, as a result of we’ve already seen it with IG’s related take a look at. The query is whether or not it’s price implementing, as a method to shift consumer behaviors, and reform how in-app engagement works.

It’s a dangerous strategy. However I assume, that’s what Elon does, so… good luck?