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Twitter Blue is now available in the US and NZ

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Re: Twitter Blue is now available in the US and NZ

#21

Post by renewiltord »

X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #18
johnnyo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average across all users is $12, but I suspect the average over people willing to pay for Blue is likely higher than that. It's can be a Catch-22 in some cases. The same people most willing to pay to opt-out are the ones most coveted by advertisers.

Some how I don't think the people that want to pay to get rid of ads are the ones clicking on them. Anecdotally someone I am close to doesn't seem to mind ads and regularly buys products from them, I block ads and rarely ever buy products from them. I'd pay for not being served ads in the first place

Anecdotally, I click ads and buy things from them all the time and I have all ad free subscriptions: YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, WSJ, Economist. Lots of stuff. Instagram doesn’t have an ad free thing but I would have paid for it in the past. Not any more though.

Re: Twitter Blue is now available in the US and NZ

#22

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

manningthegoose wrote: post #12
ghawk1ns wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said the data-harvesting would stop?

You're right, it probably won't, at least not while it's still printing money for all the corporate entities involved. But it's my understanding that most of the data-harvesting tools in use today were originally created to enhance ad-targeting and drive up CPM. At the very least we can hope products like Blue might put a dent in this incentive structure.

Cable television was supposed to be a direct funded, ad free alternative to broadcast.

Re: Twitter Blue is now available in the US and NZ

#23

Post by perihelions »

black_puppydog wrote: post #14
perihelions wrote: post #10

This seems eerily similar to what people feared could happen to the web in the absence of net neutrality, only with the role of the ISP this time replaced by a platform content referrer. A multi-tiered web: premium lanes for corporate sponsors with money changing hands. > "On iOS and desktop, Twitter Blue members will enjoy a fast-loading, ad-free reading experience when they visit many of their favorite news sites a…

Maybe they just mean that when you don't load all the ads, things can actually load pretty fast? 0:-)

Yes, they're providing different quality experiences, but not actually throttling bits like in the net neutrality scenario.

Re: Twitter Blue is now available in the US and NZ

#25

Post by tootie »

manningthegoose wrote: post #3

As someone who was an initial skeptic when this was first announced, I really appreciate what twitter is trying to do with Blue, especially around direct payments to publishers. Any step to get the internet off of the ad-based data-harvesting revenue model is ultimately better for almost all parties.

But, it's not direct payment to publishers. It's indirect via twitter. You can pay publishers directly already by buying subscriptions. Publishers angling for retweets to get nickels from twitter's algorithm is anathema to professional journalism.

This is mostly my hot take just based on the press release, but color me dubious. Local news is struggling nationwide and this doesn't feel like a solution. It feels like silicon valley looking to increase profits for their shareholders to the detriment of the world.

Re: Twitter Blue is now available in the US and NZ

#27

Post by PascLeRasc »

angulardragon03 wrote: post #5
unangst wrote: post #2

I'm glad to support independent journalism while gaining ad-free access to quality content on a platform I frequent.

Ideally you'd also get ad-free access to Twitter itself, which I would certainly consider paying for. Considering the annual per-user revenue is ~ 12USD [1], this seems like something that would be financially interesting to Twitter. [1] https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/forecast-of-the-day%3A-twitt...

Is this not covering promoted tweets? That's what I'd like to pay to not see.

Re: Twitter Blue is now available in the US and NZ

#28

Post by tootie »

echelon wrote: post #9

Can they let us pay to remove all sponsored tweets? That's all I want. I'd gladly pay $10/mo. YouTube Red is the best product experience, and it's something I would pay to have elsewhere. I hate ads. I never buy products from ads. They just distract me. I'd pay $1000/yr for a completely ad-free Google. (No search result ads, no AMP, no "McDonalds" in Google Maps, ...)

Ad-free twitter doesn't seem like good value to me, but a completely ad-free Google sounds like a winner. I'm slightly terrified to hear what my net value to advertisers is to defray that lost profit for goog.

Re: Twitter Blue is now available in the US and NZ

#29

Post by manningthegoose »

tootie wrote: post #25
manningthegoose wrote: post #3

As someone who was an initial skeptic when this was first announced, I really appreciate what twitter is trying to do with Blue, especially around direct payments to publishers. Any step to get the internet off of the ad-based data-harvesting revenue model is ultimately better for almost all parties.

But, it's not direct payment to publishers. It's indirect via twitter. You can pay publishers directly already by buying subscriptions. Publishers angling for retweets to get nickels from twitter's algorithm is anathema to professional journalism. This is mostly my hot take just based on the press release, but color me dubious. Local news is struggling nationwide and this doesn't feel like a solution. It feels like s…

> Publishers angling for retweets to get nickels from twitter's algorithm is anathema to professional journalism.

Isn't that what they're already doing? Except the payer is the advertiser instead of the platform itself via the subscriber.

Re: Twitter Blue is now available in the US and NZ

#30

Post by peytoncasper »

perihelions wrote: post #10

This seems eerily similar to what people feared could happen to the web in the absence of net neutrality, only with the role of the ISP this time replaced by a platform content referrer. A multi-tiered web: premium lanes for corporate sponsors with money changing hands. > "On iOS and desktop, Twitter Blue members will enjoy a fast-loading, ad-free reading experience when they visit many of their favorite news sites a…

How is this any different from any other sort of bundling done by Apple news or Google news?

You're free to obtain a subscription to any of those media companies personally and simply follow the link without Twitter Blue.

Most people likely aren't going to want to manage multiple subscriptions and will instead opt to not read the article. At least with Twitter Blue the user doesn't have to worry about multiple subscriptions and can simply read the story when they want to.

Additionally, they now have a notification that indicates that they won't immediately hit a paywall when they click on the link.

Ultimately, media companies need to be compensated, and this doesn't seem to be disadvantaging anyone...

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