Did you know that there used to be an upper echelon of Twitter users who didn’t have to have ads like the rest of us plebs? Well, there was – but not anymore. Twitter is becoming more democratic.

High follower counts, low ads

The no-ad version of the service used to only be available to certain high-profile users. If your account fulfilled a certain set of criteria that deemed you a valuable user, you would see little to no ads.

A company spokesperson explained,

Historically, people with high follower counts have seen fewer ads. Recently, we’ve taken a more consistent approach of showing ads to everyone who uses Twitter and as a result, people with higher follower counts will notice an increase in the number of ads they’re seeing.

Twitter began transitioning these accounts back in May, and now all accounts will be seeing ads.

Needless to say, some users are unhappy about the change.

Changing advertising strategy

The reason for the transition is related to the recent controversy of Twitter using supposed private information to target users with ads, including their operating system, the device they use to access the platform, and age of their device. Twitter has had to reconfigure their overall advertising strategy.

What does this mean for advertisers?

Though advertisements may be able to reach a wider range of people as a result, they will also lose some audience targeting abilities that were previously available. However, cost per ad engagement has decreased twelve percent, which is a plus for advertisers using the platform.