Two weeks ago I gave up on X. I stopped posting or sharing items. I deleted my posts going back a year (with more deletions to come, including replies to others).
What happened?
The Algorithm rarely showed my posts, even to my own followers.
I have 1700 “followers” but my posts are shown to just 1-2% of those giving my post visibility just 10-30 views (typical).
So why bother? X just became a huge waste of time.
I asked Grok to assess my content. Grok told me my data oriented posts lacked emotional content and click-bait rage. Grok said The Algorithm favors outrage, emotion, and now, video content. Factual posts citing relevant sources are downranked the most. X favors outrage, noise and misinformation.
I am not the only one. I asked an AI other than Grok about this.
X is experiencing a significant and sustained decline in daily user interest and engagement. Third-party data from firms like Sensor Tower and Apptopia indicates that X’s daily active users (DAU) have fallen by approximately 13% to 18% globally since Elon Musk’s acquisition in late 2022, with US-specific daily mobile users dropping 23% over the same period. While X claims 250 million DAU, independent trackers suggest the actual number is closer to 121–174 million, highlighting a substantial gap between reported metrics and real-world usage.
The decline in interest is driven by several key factors that impact post visibility:
- User Exodus and Stagnation: X has added zero new daily active users since November 2022. In contrast, competitors like Threads have seen massive download surges, with Threads receiving 8-to-1 more downloads than X in early 2024.
- Reduced Engagement Time: The average user now spends about 11 minutes per day on X, down from over 30 minutes previously, forcing content to compete for attention in a much shorter window.
- Creator and Publisher Attrition: A significant portion of publishers and active posters have left the platform. Since only 20% of users ever post content, the loss of these “power users” disproportionately reduces the overall visibility and relevance of remaining posts.
- Algorithmic and Bot Issues: Reports indicate that a high percentage of referral traffic and interactions may still be driven by bot accounts, which can dilute the visibility of genuine human content and frustrate regular users.
The difficulty in gaining visibility for posts is a widely reported symptom of this broader platform decline, as the active, human user base shrinks and engagement patterns shift toward passive consumption.
