X
Social
X keeps adding payments and video. Advertisers still want to know about safety
The everything-app roadmap grows while brand budgets stay cautious.
X's ambition to become an everything app keeps producing new features: payments, longer video, creator subscriptions and a growing list of tools that have little to do with short posts. On a feature checklist, the platform has never looked busier.
What has not caught up is the advertising business that pays for all of it. Big brands remain careful about where their ads appear, and many still treat X as a place to spend selectively rather than by default.
The brand safety gap
Advertisers want predictability. They want to know their ads will not run next to content they would rather avoid, and they want measurement they can trust. X has added controls for both, but trust is slower to rebuild than a feature is to ship.
Can features win back budgets?
Payments and video could help if they give advertisers new formats and better data. They could also add new surfaces to police. For now, X is building fast while its biggest potential customers keep watching from the side.