Twitter discovers the Kelcey Rule

If you have a slop problem, start by not subsidizing it.

Jul 3, 2026 · 1 min read

Twitter’s head of product recently had the following revelation about the platform’s revenue sharing program:

Screenshot of a Twitter post by Nikita Bier saying: “In a 3% experiment, removing the Top-30 highest paid revenue share accounts from the For You timeline increased both time spent and daily active users on X.”

As predicted by everyone when Twitter announced their revenue-sharing program in 2023, paying people to ragebait your users is not a recipe for long-term success. Posters gotta be in it for the love of the game.

Basically, Twitter ran into the Kelcey Rule:

Before a government tries to solve a problem, it should first make sure it’s not already subsidizing the problem.

Substitute “platform” for “government” and there you go. If you have a slop problem, maybe stop paying people to make slop.