On August 7, X officially announced the cessation of new registrations for the Creator Revenue Sharing program, with existing participants' revenue sharing ending on September 7, and the last payment expected to arrive on September 11.

In its place is a brand new program—Original Content Rewards, open for applications starting September 8. All participants from the old program must reapply, with no automatic transition.

X stated bluntly in the announcement: the old program's "incentive mechanism has gone off track," and creators should focus on bringing net new content to the platform, rather than maximizing personal income.

In layman's terms, the previous incentive mechanism supported too many re-posters, AI content creators, and engagement bait accounts, leading to exploitation; X has decided to reset.

What exactly has changed between the old and new programs?

The logic of the old program was simple: as long as your post received enough impressions, and there were ads in the replies, you could earn some money. It didn't matter if your content was an original in-depth analysis or simply re-uploading something downloaded from TikTok with a watermark; the system treated them equally. This mechanism fostered a large number of accounts that generated revenue through mere reposting, and made AI-generated content a business.

The new program makes fundamental adjustments on three levels.

What counts as money?
The old program calculated revenue based on ad revenue sharing, while the new program switched to rewards based on "qualified impressions." The definition of qualified impressions is very strict: it only counts if Premium paying users see your post in their homepage feed and the post is at least 50% visible. The same user viewing the same post only counts once. Paid promotions, artificially inflated views, and fraudulent impressions do not count.

What content qualifies?
The new program clearly defines "original content": content that you personally write, shoot, design, or produce, reflecting your own voice, perspectives, or expertise. Comments, analyses, and interpretations of news events count as original as long as your contribution is a major source of the post's value.

What does not count as original: directly copying someone else's content and uploading it; re-uploading content downloaded from X or other platforms; slight modifications such as just adding a watermark, changing filters, adjusting speed, or adding borders; simple reposting and compiling without substantial viewpoints.

Who can participate?
The barriers have both lowered and raised. The impression requirement has been reduced from the old program's high threshold to 500,000 homepage impressions from paying users within the past 90 days, and the follower requirement is reduced to 500 verified followers, widening access. However, a new review requirement for "original content history" has been added, along with a continuous compliance mechanism: violations may lead to temporary suspension or permanent removal from the program, and failed appeals prevent reapplication for 90 days.

One particularly noteworthy point: posting AI-generated videos related to war without an AI disclosure will result in a 90-day suspension for the first violation, and permanent removal for subsequent violations.

Practical advice for creators

Immediately check whether your account meets the new threshold. 500 verified followers and 500,000 homepage impressions from Premium users are hard indicators. If you are close to these thresholds, the next month is a sprinting window. Note: the impressions in the replies do not count.

From now on, consciously build an "original content record." The new program's review will examine your posting history. If 90% of your posts in the past were reposts and reuploads, your application will likely not be approved. There is one month remaining until September 8 to adjust your content structure.

Do not publish engagement bait posts like "like + retweet + follow." The new program's continuous compliance terms clearly prohibit "soliciting engagements," meaning repeated requests for user interactions can lead to exclusion from the program.

Understand how "qualified impressions" are calculated.

Only when Premium users see your post in their homepage feeds does it count. This means the income of creators is directly linked to the number of X's Premium subscribers. The more paying users X has, the larger the income pool for creators. This also explains why X is making this adjustment: the old program relied on ad revenue sharing, while the new program’s underlying logic is to use creator incentives to drive more people to subscribe to Premium.

If your main content format is comments and analyses (a significant number of encrypted KOLs fall into this category), do not worry about being "not original." X's policy documents clearly state that analyses, interpretations, and comments on news events are original content. It does not matter if you use someone else's materials; what matters is that your judgment and perspective are the main value of the post.

What is X betting on?

Looking at it from a broader perspective, the underlying business logic of this adjustment is not complex.

The old program relied on advertising revenue for creators' earnings, requiring X to continuously sell more ads to support an increasing number of creators while the platform's ad revenue has been under pressure since Musk's acquisition. The new program switches the payment basis from ad revenue sharing to Premium user impressions, essentially turning creators into salespersons for Premium subscriptions: the better your content, the more Premium users you attract, the more you earn, and the more subscription revenue X generates.

This mirrors the logic behind OpenAI making ChatGPT freely available: the platform acquires customers for free, while monetization occurs at the ecosystem level. X's "platform tax" is the Premium subscription fee.

As for whether the new program can truly solve the problems of reposting and AI content farms, it depends on the accuracy of X's original content recognition system. If the review mechanism only relies on manual sampling, re-posters just need to disguise themselves more finely to continue taking advantage. If X uses its own Grok model for automated originality detection, the accuracy could be surprisingly high, as X has timestamps for almost all posts, making the first-to-post data available.

Applications open on September 8, presenting a one-month window for encrypted and AI creators to adjust their content strategies.