X Finally Gave Us Edit Button... And Made It Worse
X (formerly Twitter) added an edit button, but it’s behind a paywall with time limits and public history. Here's what works and what feels broken.
Hey hey,
We all have seen this.
Misspell one word on Instagram, forget a tag on LinkedIn, and post a half-baked thought on Threads. And that's no big deal. We just hit edit, fix it, and move on.
That’s how it works across social media. Make a mistake → Edit → Done.
But that feature wasn't available on Twitter... till very recently.
After years of begging for an edit button, we got it, but at a cost.
Let’s break it down.
Twitter (now X) finally launched the edit button after years of requests from users.
You will now have 60 minutes to edit a tweet. However, the post will have the "Edited" label with edit history. But it's locked behind X Premium as a paid feature.
The feature is hidden behind the three dots on the top right corner of the post. You can make changes and create your tweet's evolution that anyone can see.
What's Confusing / Annoying / Risky
1. They paywalled the most basic feature ever.
The ability to fix "teh" to "the" costs $8 a month.
Every other platform gives you basic editing for free.
It's like charging people to use the backspace. It feels less like a premium feature and more like holding basic functionality hostage.
2. The edit history creates more drama than it solves.
Now, when someone edits a tweet, everyone rushes to check what they changed. "What did they say originally?!" becomes the new obsession.
Instead of quietly fixing typos, edits become mini news events.
The cure became worse than the disease.
3. 60 minutes is too long and too short.
Too short to fix anything if you are away from your phone.
Too long for people who want to completely change what they said and pretend they never wrote something stupid.
It's the worst of both worlds. Not quick enough for real-time conversation, not permanent enough to prevent bad-faith editing.
But they did one thing right.
They protected the reply context.
They didn't let users rewrite tweets completely that already have replies.
The edit history prevents the classic "why is everyone mad at me for saying 'I love puppies'?" when the original tweet was different.
That would have broken threaded conversations entirely.
What Would You Fix?
If you were running X, how would you redesign the edit feature?
Pricing Strategy: Should basic typo fixes be free, with only major edits requiring premium? Where do you draw that line?
Time Limits: Would you make it shorter (5 minutes for hot takes) or longer (24 hours for thoughtful threads)? Different limits for different tweet types?
Edit Notifications: Should followers get notified when someone edits a tweet they have already seen? How do you balance transparency with spam?
Context Preservation: Would you show the edit diff inline, or keep it hidden behind clicks? How much friction should viewing edit history have?
Final Thoughts
Twitter turned the most-wanted feature into a money grab and somehow made editing tweets feel sketchy.
They optimized for preventing abuse instead of allowing authentic communication. The result is a feature that makes every edit feel suspicious and every typo feel expensive. Instead, here's what they should have shipped.
Free edits for the first 5 minutes, paid edits for longer periods.
No edit history for obvious typos, full history for substantial edits.
Instead, they created a system where fixing "there/their/they're" costs money and makes people suspicious of your motives.
Have you paid for Twitter Blue just to edit tweets? What's the dumbest typo you have left up because editing wasn't worth it?
Roast Twitter's edit feature in the comments!
Edits could have been free like other platforms. But Twitter became X as real information is buried in disinformation. So X is in itself was a Fix to Social Media norms. The premium we pay to change our thought(edit) might look fair. However it could be difficult to clause the minor (the/teh) and major (god/dog) edits behind paywall, if at all exceptions are entertained.