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

271–280 of 1001 posts

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#271

Post by cycomanic »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #220
jjfoooo6 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, it is that it's going to be very difficult for users to intuitively understand what "half ads" means and why they should pay for it. It's a completely nonsensical compromise. Musk's product ideas for Twitter seems to assume that what everyone wants is for Twitter to be more complex, with more knobs to fiddle with.

There's a simple way to make this legible to the user: instead of slashing ad frequency, eliminate half of ad surface . I.e. if there are N places on the page where ads are being served, turn off half of them for the paying users. This will be an obvious difference, and remain so even as the ad intensity/frequency increases.

Yes and be just as anoying. I'm not sure that anyone would see a value of just seeing half the amount of ads on a page.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#273

Post by lupire »

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…

"Half" ads is extremely common. Disney and Netflix are doing it, and even if you don't have platform ads, the content embeds ads.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#274

Post by meragrin_ »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #222
memish wrote: post #202

A lot of people aren't groking what this means, even on tech and startup savvy HN. Naval and Balaji said it well: Charging for the blue check moves it from a status symbol to a utilitarian one. It elicits shrieks because it’s more about leveling the playing field than making money. https://twitter.com/naval/status/1587523978456748033 The blue checks wanted to abolish billionaires, in the name of equality. The billion…

> Everyone who needs one can pay for a blue check. At $8/month, that's patently not true. Why should verification be anything other than a pay-once deal, if it has to be paid for at all?

> At $8/month, that's patently not true.

Who needs one that cannot afford $8/month? Does anyone really need it?

> Why should verification be anything other than a pay-once deal, if it has to be paid for at all?

It is not just verification though. Verification is just part of the subscription.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#275

Post by whoknew1122 »

memish wrote: post #243
res0nat0r wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some better takes on this from what I've seen: https://twitter.com/jamesrbuk/status/1587381512500125699 > If one in five current blue ticks paid $20 a month that would raise just under $15 million a year for Twitter…Twitter’s current revenues (mostly from ads) are $5 billion a year. Musk’s apparent plan would generate about 30 hours’ worth of annual revenue. https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/158750920240192716…

"It elicits shrieks because it’s more about leveling the playing field than making money."

Twitter is currently free.

This proposed subscription prioritizes content based on who can/decides to pay $8 a month.

How exactly is this leveling the playing field?

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#276

Post by reaperducer »

res0nat0r wrote: post #228
memish wrote: post #202

A lot of people aren't groking what this means, even on tech and startup savvy HN. Naval and Balaji said it well: Charging for the blue check moves it from a status symbol to a utilitarian one. It elicits shrieks because it’s more about leveling the playing field than making money. https://twitter.com/naval/status/1587523978456748033 The blue checks wanted to abolish billionaires, in the name of equality. The billion…

Some better takes on this from what I've seen: https://twitter.com/jamesrbuk/status/1587381512500125699 > If one in five current blue ticks paid $20 a month that would raise just under $15 million a year for Twitter…Twitter’s current revenues (mostly from ads) are $5 billion a year. Musk’s apparent plan would generate about 30 hours’ worth of annual revenue. https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/158750920240192716…

If one in five current blue ticks paid $20 a month that would raise just under $15 million a year for Twitter

Until suddenly there are yellow checkmarks available for $100/month, and red checkmarks available for $500/month, and enterprise-only green checkmarks for $5,000/month.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#277

Post by Karrot_Kream »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #169
ftio wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a user perspective it's messy and confusing. What does "half as many" even mean? The experience is only different in degree, not in kind. There's less value, both real and perceived, in such a position. It's hard to imagine that the conversation started from "half as many." My hunch is that it started as "no ads" and somehow backed down to "half" for one reason or another. A couple reasons I can imagine are: - T…

Why do you have that hunch? Do you presume good will? My hunch says, what if the conversation started as "how do we make users believe there will be less ads"?

Should one presume bad faith here?

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#278

Post by lupire »

bydo wrote: post #43
taude wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix has ad-tier coming for $7/month. HBO Max costs like $16/month. I get ads for Hulu, but that costs only $.99/month on Black Friday deal. I'm paying $80/year for Disney, and I think Apple is still charging only $5/month. So....I don't know, $8 doesn't feel that ridiculously out of line priced. [1] https://www.ign.com/articles/netflix-ad-supported-tier-price...

Those companies all spend money to create and/or license content. Twitter seems to want users to pay $8/mo and continue to see ads for the privilege of creating the content that brings users to Twitter?

Brands don't post to be nice. They are posting ads for their business.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#279

Post by nightski »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #165
DeRock wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $8 is way more than the profitability of an ad supported user. There's no excuse for "half the ads", it should be none at all. Adverse selection. The people willing to pay to remove ads are probably your most profitable users to show ads to.

The people willing to pay, the heavy users, are also the people most engaged and posting content on the platform. Content that twitter needs for less heavy users to consume, bringing in eyeballs for advertisers. Continuing to show ads to paying content creators is double-dipping.

I'd expect those two to intersect for sure, but I imagine there are plenty of people with enough disposable cash that enjoy twitter but contribute very little. Or maybe I am just an extreme outlier :)

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#280

Post by deltree7 »

lupire wrote: post #273
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…

"Half" ads is extremely common. Disney and Netflix are doing it, and even if you don't have platform ads, the content embeds ads.

Yeah, there were ads in Newspapers and Magazines too that you paid money.

There is an entire generation of entitled people who grew up in 0% VC-funded businesses who are accustomed to getting great products for free who have to adjust to the reality of cost of capital.

Post reply on HN