Ask HN: How would you turn Twitter around?

In short - highlight what Twitter is really good at, which is delivering bits of fleeting information and working in commerce.

The long version - ads are great, but they cause a misalignment between the service users are happy with and the services necessary to monetize. In addition (not instead), id bring payments into the platform so goods can be discovered and purchased directly through the feed without the user having to leave the platform.

This would require quite a few changes throughout, but when they all come together I believe it'll bring the platform much closer to a Facebook-like status, where users spend more time on the platform as opposed to it being a "starting point" to finding interesting links.

Nnnnnno, it's not "just words". It's threatening to kill and rape people, directly attacking their safety and their right to a peaceable life. It's giving a platform to people who are putting the idea in others' heads that they should hurt and kill people. I don't have to follow the "race realist" assholes among us to have the fact that they are given a platform by a company under no obligation to do so--and that they use that platform to gather followers under the direct purpose of separating the white race from the blacks or the Jews or whoever the hate-object-of-the-week is. Their followers do. They are strengthened by being given their platform with which to attract more soft-headed followers. Words have consequences that cannot be waved away so cavalierly. Those consequences may not impact you, but they impact a whole lot of people and they can't be dismissed.

The government should, for reasons that make a lot of sense, be reticent (but not wholly unwilling, because the real world doesn't work in absolutes) to intercede here, because freedom of speech with regard to the state is a different thing from respecting and accepting speech by society--but Twitter isn't the government.

"1) Creating a twitter profile costs $5."

It's over then. 99% of users don't care about Twitter that much to pay a dime.

Can't charge old users, and growth is already small anyhow.

Only about 1% of these various service entities will pay.

And the number of 'truly famous people' on Twitter is very small.

Some kind of 'unit payment' scenario would be feasible, but only if it were truly seamless, and no such paradigm exists yet.

The 'problem' is not with revenue, it's with growth and engagement.

Embrace the use of lists and its workflow (think tweetdeck). Side by side lists. I insist on side by side because you don't want one particular list stopping content from other lists to catch your eye.

Implement smart/personalized lists by interest and suggest them to users, suggest new people to add to existing lists and/or tweets that may be relevant to that list. A bit like spotify playlists and smart radios, but oriented to tweets.

Basically, make it easier for people to find tweets and users they want to follow, segmented by interest.

Display relevant non-intrusive ads based on the interests on that list. They should take the hint from reddit regarding what "non-intrusive" means. Adding something like Reddit Gold wouldn't be a bad idea either.

Apart from that, a nice interface to follow live events and their tweets would be awesome.

I imagine one day I open Twitter to read my friends tweets and get greeted with message:

"Hello! Today, to make world more disrupted with innovation, we pivoted Twitter to become a sports TV channel! All your tweets are gone, instead open a bottle of beer and watch this great game! 20 well-fit males kick the leather sphere! Isn't it impressive?"

That will be day when I throw out my router to the window, flush smartphone into toilet, install MS-DOS and Fidonet software.