Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Twitter Blue for $8/Month

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 1001 posts

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#111

Post by CobrastanJorji »

Waterluvian wrote: post #16

"Half as many ads" fascinates me deeply. Has a business ever publicly quantified how many ads you get? Does YouTube say, "we expose you to an average of x seconds of commercials and y pixels of static ads"? How do I know what half should be? We've all been there: "it feels like YouTube has cranked the ads way up lately..." Will "half" just become "full" when "full" gets doubled next year?

Google used to have that one thing that said "pay us and we will make some of the ads on the Internet go away." You paid Google, and then Google eliminated ads on their websites but also ads on any website that used Google to provide their ads, and Google paid those websites as if they had shown those ads. It was a really nice idea, but it had the downside of only affecting ads on a random (from the user's perspective) subset of the Internet. Also had the downside that if you're the sort of person willing to pay to make ads go away, you're probably also a happy ad block user.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#112

Post by criddell »

memish wrote: post #71
mikkergp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's such... odd behavior. For sure Stephen King who has a net worth of $500 million dollars does not mean "the price is too high". If Elon is successful, even I will read the business school case study on it, because it flies in the face of everything I understand about complex systems and... well just about everything. The only way this works is if Elon's internal processes are way different from his public persona…

For King and many other blue checks it's a status symbol. A way for the Lord to distinguish himself from the peasants. King (aptly named) would be happier if it was a Veblen good that cost $100,000/mo, which he could afford, but the peasants can't. Elon is mocking King and his status symbol by saying "fine, how about $8?", which from the King's perspective, is worse than $20 because even more peasants will have it. T…

King responds saying Twitter should be paying him. I think that makes a lot of sense.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#113

Post by Ajedi32 »

danpalmer wrote: post #14

The good: Twitter should not be editorally curating people through verification, making verification only about ID and being a real person is a broadly good change, as long as it's not necessary for participation. Brands, celebrities, those in the public eye could benefit from this. Needs to be implemented with care and ideally with a branding change so as not to confuse users as the semantics change. The bad: $8 is…

Agree with most of this, but:

> Paying $8 [...] At best this will reduce conversation quality on Twitter

Really? That seems completely contrary to my experience. In every online community I've seen, a higher barrier to entry has always been positively correlated with the quality of the conversation.

Not saying there won't be downsides to this, but I very much doubt a lower quality of conversation will be one of them.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#114

Post by neon_electro »

bombcar wrote: post #102
marktangotango wrote: post #63

I really wish twitter didn't exist. The utility I see in it is limited. For example, I don't have an account, but I do view tweets from time to time. The tweets I generally view are related to some real time event I'm interested in (ie news). I find the fact that even then, there is usually an endless stream of mostly banal, vapid responses to be very off putting. Not only do I find the content vastly uninteresting,…

> But clearly a lot of people find it useful, I am completely mystified how this could be. Because it's internet boredom distilled into its purest form. And it's popular with journalists because now they don't even have to leave their house to ask the "man on the street" questions, they can just read twitter and regurgitate what they saw and be done with it. More and more articles are just Twitter posts reformatted,…

LinkedIn has also taken this cue and also regurgitates LinkedIn posts on its trending topics equivalent. I like the topics, I don't think the sourcing on the "hot takes from the LinkedIn crowd" works very well but I guess it gets the clicks.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#115

Post by bombcar »

dieortin wrote: post #70
Waterluvian wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things I admire about Elon (which is saying a lot...) is that for whatever reason, he's ready to bet the farm over and over. Whether he's some genius tactician or an impulsive moron, he just bought Twitter and is poised to drastically alter it. "flies in the face of everything I understand about complex systems" indeed! Forgive me for this analogy but it's in the news: Imagine if NATO just said one day, "y…

I really don’t want to live in a world in which so much depends on impulsive individuals. Your example sounds like a nightmare. That’s no way to make decisions.

If you read the stories of many "successful" CEOs (I'm thinking Jobs here, but there are others) the decisions they'd make often would come out as quite impulsive.

If you dig significantly you might find that they're not as impulsive as they seem, that the person was actually considering many aspects but playing their cards close until cut-off time.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#116

Post by frollo »

costcofries wrote: post #47
danpalmer wrote: post #14

The good: Twitter should not be editorally curating people through verification, making verification only about ID and being a real person is a broadly good change, as long as it's not necessary for participation. Brands, celebrities, those in the public eye could benefit from this. Needs to be implemented with care and ideally with a branding change so as not to confuse users as the semantics change. The bad: $8 is…

"biases towards those with means rather than those contributing to the conversation" I'm not sure this is a bad thing. If you are a user who actively contributes to the conversation and get's value out of being in that conversation, then it's likely you derive enough value to pay $8. The difference however is that now your contribution is more likely to be seen. You might even engage more now. If you aren't that user…

I totally disagree. If you actually contribute to a conversation (which means saying something which is considered relevant by the people taking part in it - not just saying something random) people will reply to you or share your views or just add a like (or platform equivalent), thus making your voice heard.

On the other hand, paying to boost your tweet regardless of its actual value is going to be a great tool for spammers, troll or people who really care more about saying something than they care about its utility to the conversation. This will definitely drive down quality (and I'm ready to bet that browser extensions to just block out anything from paid users will start popping up).

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#117

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

memish wrote: post #35
joenathanone wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- Priority in replies, mentions & search He starts off with "Power to the people", but this is just "power to the people with money"(which is the status quo). If you don't have $8/mo disposable income to spend on a vanity feature, then what you have to say will be overshadowed by the people who do.

The status quo is that you need to be a Lord to get the blue check. This makes it available to anyone who is able to get a Netflix subscription. It goes from a status symbol to a commodity. The Lords will hate it because it makes it available to the peasants.

Not in my experience. I follow plenty of blue tick accounts that aren't lords, merely notable within a niche.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#118

Post by BurningFrog »

Waterluvian wrote: post #51
mikkergp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's such... odd behavior. For sure Stephen King who has a net worth of $500 million dollars does not mean "the price is too high". If Elon is successful, even I will read the business school case study on it, because it flies in the face of everything I understand about complex systems and... well just about everything. The only way this works is if Elon's internal processes are way different from his public persona…

One of the things I admire about Elon (which is saying a lot...) is that for whatever reason, he's ready to bet the farm over and over. Whether he's some genius tactician or an impulsive moron, he just bought Twitter and is poised to drastically alter it. "flies in the face of everything I understand about complex systems" indeed! Forgive me for this analogy but it's in the news: Imagine if NATO just said one day, "y…

I don't understand Elon either, but I'm certain that he's not an impulsive moron who doesn't understand complex system, or that he's financing all this with his dad's emerald mine money.

For me, there is enough track record to prove he has some very unique business skills, and often succeeds by doing things that conventionally looks crazy.

That said, Elon's Twitter may well be a failure regardless. Pretty sure it won't be boring though :)

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#119

Post by bombcar »

ssully wrote: post #93
linuxftw wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter offers him value, or he wouldn't be on it. Personally, I think they could charge $50/mo and most blue checks would pay it. I think Elon has the right idea, you gotta dip their toes in the water, then jack up the price later.

Of course it offers him value, but Stephen King being on the platform is more valuable to Twitter than it is for King.

I wonder if that's actually true - if it is, King should go make his own Twitter-like thing.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#120

Post by tyrust »

My understanding was that value of verification was, well, verification that you were, in fact, that person [0]. I wonder if this property will be maintained.

Otherwise, impersonators can pay to get the blue check. In the long term, maybe this is fine, but in the short term every Twitter user is going to have to adjust from the old meaning of the blue check (user $foo is actually person $foo) to the new meaning (user $foo pays $8/mo).

[0] - "The blue Verified badge in Twitter lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic" - https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/about-twit...

Post reply on HN