X Ends Revenue Sharing, Launches Original Content Rewards

A social platform trying to stop paying its own aggregator ecosystem is not a small pivot, and X is putting a specific date on it. TechCrunch reported that the existing Creator Revenue Sharing program will shut down on September 7, 2026, with a replacement called Original Content Rewards opening the next day.

The bar to qualify is spelled out. Participants need 500 verified followers, 500,000 Home Timeline impressions from verified users within 90 days, and a Premium subscription. What actually gets rewarded shifts too. X will pay for original reporting and analysis, photos and videos created by the poster, memes and graphics they designed themselves, and commentary with meaningful original value. Reposts and re-uploaded downloads without meaningful transformation are out.

Why now. X spokesperson Allegra Jacchia said the existing program "had reached a point where its incentives were misaligned," and that creators should be focused on "bringing net new content to the platform instead of maximizing payouts." Rather than keep patching, the company decided to "start fresh and build a program designed from day one to reward originality."

The honest caveat is that X already tried a milder version of this in April 2026, cutting payouts to aggregators and clickbait accounts, and then partially reversed after creator backlash. What the reporting doesn't give you is the payout formula, the pool size, how X's systems will actually judge "meaningful original value" at scale, or how AI-generated and AI-assisted content will be treated on a platform that has leaned hard into cracking down on low-effort content aggregators, bots and clickbait accounts.

If enforcement holds up, journalists, videographers, illustrators and independent analysts producing genuinely original posts should capture a larger share of the pool. If it doesn't, the aggregator economy just migrates elsewhere and the same creator-trust cycle repeats. The date to watch is September 8.