X: the little social network with less than a billion members
23 October 2026
If social media/social network platforms were compared to planets, then X, previously Twitter, would be the Pluto of the solar system; a dwarf planet.
Because unlike its peers, X, twenty years after launching in 2006, is still well short — make that a long way short — of joining the one-billion-member club.
Should we take a leaf out of the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) handbook, when they re-determined Pluto’s status? 1 Should commercial social platforms with fewer than one-billion users, be classified as dwarf platforms?
According to Search Engine Land, X has about five-hundred-and-sixty million users. Facebook (FB), launched in 2004, has some three-billion members. Instagram, albeit a FB offshoot, has a similar user count. This from launching in 2010. TikTok, online since 2016, now has nearly two-billion members.
A chart of the top social media/social network platforms 2, based on monthly active users, published by Salesforce, has X ranked at a lowly number twelve. On the other hand, it is twice as popular as LinkedIn. The news isn’t all bad for X.
Everyone loves dwarf planets
I don’t like bagging out dwarf planets, so I’ll go easy on X. For a social media platform, the old micro-blogging service — is X still considered a micro-blogging service? — punches above its weight.
The brand is ubiquitous. Only five-hundred-and-sixty million people call themselves members, but find me someone who hasn’t heard of X. Though we mustn’t forget X stands on the shoulders of a (somewhat) giant called Twitter.
Even before the current owner took over, resulting in what seemed like daily headlines for months, nearly everyone knew the Twitter name. Something someone said or did on Twitter, was often reposted in mainstream news reporting, and often as an embedded tweet.
As of January 2024, X was the sixth largest referrer of website traffic, although the figure sounds more impressive than it is. X accounted for a modest two-point-three percent of referrer traffic, but was still among the top platforms, albeit well overshadowed by Google.
There’s billion member potential here, but where is everyone?
Twitter and X, were, and are, well, different
The platform is two-decades old. Why has it not enjoyed the stratospheric-level success of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and others?
When decentralised social platform Mastodon rose to prominence in 2022, people were hesitant to get involved. They found Mastodon was way too confusing. Why couldn’t it “be easy to figure out like Twitter”, was a common refrain a few years ago.
But if Twitter was so user-friendly then, why did so many people stay away?
Part of the answer lies in the platform’s early simplicity. In the beginning Twitter was a text only medium. Further, posts/tweets were restricted to one-hundred-and-forty characters. It was like text messaging for the web. A lot of people found the tweet limit as challenging as signing up to Mastodon. Others, of course, thrived on this brevity.
But there was no support early on for images and video. People didn’t like walls of text, even when they weren’t particularly sizeable. Things changed though. Today, you’d probably be hard pressed to find a post without a photo or animation. And X users who are prepared to pay for premium membership, can write posts containing up to twenty-five thousand characters.
Had X, while still Twitter, launched with imagery and a larger character limit, it could well be part of the billion member club by now.
Then there is the elephant in the room; the current owner. In taking the platform in the direction he did, some users, existing and potential, were put off. To say the least.
If I were to make the simplistic assertion that half of people are conservative in their politics, and the other half something else (not the way things really work of course), then possibly alienating potentially half of a user base isn’t clever.
This will probably be why X will not achieve a membership of one billion. X is a planet that may well be doomed to remain a dwarf.
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Pluto, politics, social media, social networks, Twitter