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Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

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Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#71

This is going to give away a huge competitive advantage for good marketers. If I know my political ads are most effective with Women, 45-65, who are Hispanic, and that's where I'm focusing my spend.... Is it fair for the opponent to have that information? If they give that level of detail for political ads, I hope they at least spare startup businesses who are still researching to find their ideal audience.

Is it fair to the people being targeted for manipulation to not know why they're being targeted?

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#72
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I’m rich relative to the mean Twitter audience, please ruin your business model for something that is privilege at best and crypto-HN virtue signaling at worst.” It’s been awhile since I’ve had the chance to measure the caliber of Twitter’s finance quants, but last I knew it was pretty fucking hard to get past the phone screen for that job. I enjoyed jousting with them.

Oh, please. Twitter's average revenue per user is something like $2-3 per quarter. Your notion that you have to be some kind of Scrooge McDuck to spend $25/year on a Twitter Premium subscription is ridiculous. Jamming "virtue signaling" into places where it doesn't fit is its own kind of virtue signaling.

[flagged]

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#73

What I'd like is a "Twitter made $x from you in the last year through showing you ads. Click here to pay us $2x and not see any for the next year."

It's been tried. Most directly by Google, but almost any publisher on the internet has tested various forms of subscription model.

While some high-quality publications (the New York Times, Economist, etc.) have seen some success in recent years, the overwhelming evidence is that the economics just don't work out among the general public.

Most people also underestimate the costs. IIRC, Google needs about $100/pa to supplant advertising revenue.

Yes, you may be willing to pay, so why aren't more services willing to take your money? Apart from the administrative hassle of such a program, the $100 (or whatever) are also an average. People willing to pay as much for an ad-free experience just happen to be at the top end of the value distribution for advertisers as well.

In other words: If you're willing to give me 2bucks, it's gonna cost you 5!

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least that's something you can research, unlike now where you have no information.

I want to be optimistic about this ... but it's not like people particular care who is feeding them this stuff. They will complain about shadow government fake news in one breath, while at the same time sharing loads of drivel from `UberPatriotEagleGuns News`, or to be fair, `SocialistOther96PercentDemocratHose`

I agree that people don't care (broadly speaking) but people who do care still have a chance (my original point) and perhaps more importantly, journalists can investigate and publish articles that can be read by the middle segment of people who care enough to read the news but don't care enough to investigate themselves.

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#75

What I'd like is a "Twitter made $x from you in the last year through showing you ads. Click here to pay us $2x and not see any for the next year."

It's been tried. Most directly by Google, but almost any publisher on the internet has tested various forms of subscription model. While some high-quality publications (the New York Times, Economist, etc.) have seen some success in recent years, the overwhelming evidence is that the economics just don't work out among the general public. Most people also underestimate the costs. IIRC, Google needs about $100/pa to su…

You should get a discount if you never click on ads. I've been blocking them for years, so any subscriptions I sign up for are 100% free money. The same is true of people who block ads mentally.

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#76

What I'd like is a "Twitter made $x from you in the last year through showing you ads. Click here to pay us $2x and not see any for the next year."

It's been tried. Most directly by Google, but almost any publisher on the internet has tested various forms of subscription model. While some high-quality publications (the New York Times, Economist, etc.) have seen some success in recent years, the overwhelming evidence is that the economics just don't work out among the general public. Most people also underestimate the costs. IIRC, Google needs about $100/pa to su…

Google is currently selling this service for youtube, branded "youtube red." It costs $10/mo and as part of that they also offer to repair some of the crippleware in the youtube app.

It doesn't seem worth it, to me. I need ad blockers anyway for other ad services and annoyances so I end up just avoiding their built-in ad-riddled apps and going through a browser for things like youtube. It's a poor experience but better than dealing with ads.

I understand the value prop for shipping crippleware apps in a low cost android phone, but they ship the same stuff on flagship $1k phones like the pixel. It's a bizarre choice.

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#77
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I’m rich relative to the mean Twitter audience, please ruin your business model for something that is privilege at best and crypto-HN virtue signaling at worst.” It’s been awhile since I’ve had the chance to measure the caliber of Twitter’s finance quants, but last I knew it was pretty fucking hard to get past the phone screen for that job. I enjoyed jousting with them.

Oh, please. Twitter's average revenue per user is something like $2-3 per quarter. Your notion that you have to be some kind of Scrooge McDuck to spend $25/year on a Twitter Premium subscription is ridiculous. Jamming "virtue signaling" into places where it doesn't fit is its own kind of virtue signaling.

Even amongst those who say they would pay $25/year for Twitter premium, we'd first have to account for stated vs. revealed preferences of how many would actually pay. I can't speak about you as an individual, but study after study has shown that this can be a huge effect. And keep in mind, this is only among privacy minded tech people. The vast majority of social media users do not give a shit about this (and will explicitly say so). Also, I imagine the people who are willing to pay for Twitter premium are highly correlated with the people who constantly rail about social media and threaten to quit/actually do quit. For those people, switching to a paid model is just going to provide the impetus to go ahead and quit anyway. All of which serve to bring the per user expenses up, but then increasing the cost of online services usually prompts a huge hue and cry (see: every time Netflix ups their prices), so you can't keep up with inflation even. And so people start quitting, and then due to network effects everyone else also starts quitting and the service dies. This is not in Twitter/Facebook's best interest and rest assured, they will not ever do it.

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been tried. Most directly by Google, but almost any publisher on the internet has tested various forms of subscription model. While some high-quality publications (the New York Times, Economist, etc.) have seen some success in recent years, the overwhelming evidence is that the economics just don't work out among the general public. Most people also underestimate the costs. IIRC, Google needs about $100/pa to su…

Google is currently selling this service for youtube, branded "youtube red." It costs $10/mo and as part of that they also offer to repair some of the crippleware in the youtube app. It doesn't seem worth it, to me. I need ad blockers anyway for other ad services and annoyances so I end up just avoiding their built-in ad-riddled apps and going through a browser for things like youtube. It's a poor experience but bett…

I pay it. For the most part I'm pretty happy about it. I fucking hate ads, and I do like watching YouTube videos. It's a straightforward model.

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#80

What I'd like is a "Twitter made $x from you in the last year through showing you ads. Click here to pay us $2x and not see any for the next year."

Couldn't that get awfully expensive for people with lots of followers?

Perhaps people with lots of followers should be able to make money on Twitter, just like people with lots of views make money on YouTube.
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