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Twitter acquires Revue

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201–210 of 270 posts

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#201
post #7

Excellent acquisition. Twitter will definitely compete and take marketshare from Substack with lower fees from 20% to 5%. I hope this acquisition is actually a stepping stone for Twitter to become a much better service. Twitter could absolutely become a paid service and move away from ads as its business model. No political ads to worry about. No interference with the product experience. And believe it or not, if I u…

I am a bit cynical about that Spyware-aaS companies like FB would stop spying just becouse you paid them. I mean I bought a Samsung TV for 1000USD and still it tries to show adds and spy. The temptation to increase margins is high no matter what. I am not that up to date with Twitter. Are they in the same class as FB and Google?

A derivative take on this is that getting people used to paying for internet services, would enable more respectful platforms that need the subscription revenue, to exist.

I also would never pay for participation in a monolithic user-generated content platform with questionable "curation" (e.g. Youtube Premium), but directly paying for hosting/moderation/admin work is still the way forward IMO.

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Twitter would be okay if the history professor with the $1m Substack comes over to them and people like Glenn Greenwald stay at Substack though.

History professor with 1m substack? Is this a specific reference?

Yep: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/27/business/media/heather-co...

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a bit cynical about that Spyware-aaS companies like FB would stop spying just becouse you paid them. I mean I bought a Samsung TV for 1000USD and still it tries to show adds and spy. The temptation to increase margins is high no matter what. I am not that up to date with Twitter. Are they in the same class as FB and Google?

> The temptation to increase margins is high no matter what. yep, I remember when cable tv was ad-free (because who would've dreamt people would be ok with paying a subscription fee while still getting ads shoved down their throat?)

In addition to cable going to ads, it deserves mention that many shows today feature brand advertising right in the program.

I pay for Netflix, but go watch a Korean drama and they are clearly advertising Subway, KFC, Samsung, etc. right there in the show through the show itself.

Movies do this too, and you paid for that expensive ticket. Wayne's World even did a parody of this in 1992:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjB6r-HDDI0

Advertising is incredibly pervasive in our modern society and only going to increase.

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#204
post #173
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you're mainly referring to Trump. Inciting a coup is technically a political reason, but I think most people agree that's a valid reason to silence someone.

No, I'm mainly referring to the NY Post which was pre-emptively banned before Twitter had fact-checked their story. Even after it was proven that the story was true, Twitter refused to unlock their account. It took weeks of immense public pressure and even then the NY Post might've still been forced to delete the "offending" tweets just to satisfy Twitter and get their account back. https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/sta…

> Even after it was proven that the story was true

Where did you get that that story was true? It was mostly fake but with some elements of truth in it. The story itselve didn't even seem credible was my POV.

Source?

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#205
post #19

This space is quite interesting. You have the gorilla at the picnic (Substack), the stagnating old timers (TinyLetter), the member management platforms (Memberful, probably Mailchimp), the link dump creators (curated.co) and the spunky indie upstarts (Buttondown).

Yeah, but I guess by going free, Revue is going to grab a good chunk of the space.

For example, curated.co seems nice, but $25 bucks a month for sending a newsletter that doesn't even have a single subscriber?

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#206

> Starting today, we’re making Revue’s Pro features free for all accounts and lowering the paid newsletter fee to 5% ...and there goes Substack's entire business. Overall, this is great for writers however. The missing component to Substack was the discovery/social mechanism. From a strategic perspective, it's easier to bolt on newsletter sending than it is to build a new social network. So this was always a huge ris…

A few of Substack's writers wouldn't be allowed for long on a Twitter-owned platforms, and they know it. Writers like Greenwald, Yarvin, and Taibbi are all to varying degrees, transgressive enough and critical enough of social media to perceive the extra cut Substack takes as a reasonable ask in exchange for a greater level of platform security.

Substack will certainly lose a lot of writers, but I think it'll be safe as a profitable niche alternative.

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#207
post #157

As a user of Twitter who mainly reads tweets rather than writing them, I hope this isn't just a way to make larger volumes of misinformation go viral. Obviously, that's not Twitter's intention, but they want to make money, and viral misinformation seems to be an effective strategy for making money. The reason I raise this issue is because the important characteristic of Twitter is that others can call out the misinfo…

That's the first time I hear of Twitter as a platform inherently efficient against misinformation. If anything, it seems uniquely primed to spread it and reward users for doing so.

Oh, Twitter's definitely not a tool "against misinformation". My concern is actually that it's so efficient at spreading misinformation and now they want to take away the ability to call out the misinformation.

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#208
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm mainly referring to the NY Post which was pre-emptively banned before Twitter had fact-checked their story. Even after it was proven that the story was true, Twitter refused to unlock their account. It took weeks of immense public pressure and even then the NY Post might've still been forced to delete the "offending" tweets just to satisfy Twitter and get their account back. https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/sta…

> Even after it was proven that the story was true Where did you get that that story was true? It was mostly fake but with some elements of truth in it. The story itselve didn't even seem credible was my POV. Source?

The email authenticity was verified via DKIM signature.

I'm not going to break it down point-by-point because you're just shifting the goalposts now. Twitter and FB let plenty of fake and exaggerated stories run wild when they say something negative about Trump. For example, the fake stories about Trump telling people to "Drink/inject bleach", the fake stories about him calling COVID a "hoax", and the fake stories about him calling Nazis "very fine people".

All of those were debunked -- even by left-leaning fact-checkers -- yet none of them were removed or penalized on the social media platforms.

Re: Twitter acquires Revue

#210
I’m curious as to why Twitter chose to do this as an acquisition rather than build their own. It doesn’t seem particularly hard to build from an engineering perspective, and I doubt Twitter needs to acquire the Revue user base given their existing profile and reach.
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