Traffic to Twitter's ad-buying portal grew, but not by much, in the first quarter of 2022 – which could foreshadow unhappy news when the company reports earnings for the quarter on April 28 – and could help explain the importance Elon Musk places on moving the company away from dependence on advertising.

Twitter's board of directors recently agreed to Musk's offer to buy the company for $44 billion and take it private, subject to the approval of shareholders and regulators. In addition to seeking new sources of income, Musk has said he wants to decrease dependence on advertisers who insist on content moderation policies he calls incompatible with "free speech" on the platform.

Whether or not alternatives Musk has speculated about such as a subscription model would work, it's true that the advertising model is under pressure.
Here is what Similarweb's comparative web metrics have to say about how Twitter is doing relative to the competition.