When X premium came out they said if I paid my tweets would be boosted more. I didn't pay, and my account with a few hundred followers went from 100ish views per average tweet to 10.

If you think you don't need to pay for engagement on there I can only assume you're paying for it and unaware of the difference.

It's probably not "the more you pay the more interactions you get", but there definitely is "if you pay, you get more interactions". Blue checks are boosted in top of replies etc., and is ironically often the exact people you don't want to see.

if you go to the premium section and look at the benefits it literally says (from memory) if you pay 3.5€/month you get a small boost on interactions for your tweets. If you pay 5€/month you get a bigger boost on interactions if you pay (I don't remember how much it is) 22€/month ~ you get the biggest boost for your tweets.

That to me sounds like if you don't pay, you're going to be in the bottom of the feed for everyone else.

Doesn’t matter what it is called. You can buy interactions, that’s like buying fake followers.