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Twitter Blue for $8/Month

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Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#311

Post by type-r »

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…

not that i think this is some brilliant revenue strategy but it does not strike me as a good take to automatically assume that the current blue check mark base is a strict superset of who will pay $8/month

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#313

Post by lupire »

clouddrover wrote: post #270
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…

> A lot of people aren't groking what this means There is no mystery here. It went like this: 1. Musk signed a binding agreement to buy Twitter. 2. And then he got cold feet when he decided he didn't like the deal he made and he spent six months desperately trying to not buy Twitter. 3. And then he finally understood that he would lose the court case and that he had to live up to the contract and so he bought Twitter…

What's missing is how capricious monetization ideas get us from 4 to solvency.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#314

Post by TeMPOraL »

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?

Yes? It's actually better for Twitter because they can get pocket most of the money.

Companies aren't voluntarily charging barely enough to cover costs - they're being forced to do it by competition. Normally, they'll charge you as much as they can get away with.

It would be news if Twitter, or anyone else for that matter, decided to voluntarily charge less for the sake of fairness to the users.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#315

Post by tommica »

dan-robertson wrote: post #285

The dynamics on Twitter are quite weird. There’s a small number of users with potentially lots of followers for whom Twitter is an important part of their work or life. If you’re a journalist, being on Twitter is basically part of your job so maybe you should have to pay a bit more just like the customer of some business software ($100 pa seems pretty cheap there). Indeed maybe media publications should be paying for…

I guess I am an outlier in this, but I don't think I have a single "famous" person that I follow - maybe some bigger figures in a niche area, but the people that have the blue mark are not the draw for me.

But when I do search for them, it is convenient to see the blue mark to figure out what might be the account I am looking for.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#316

Post by lupire »

jjfoooo6 wrote: post #158
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?

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.

"half" means less annoying. It's not complicated for users.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#317

Post by type-r »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #111
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 perspectiv…

Google Contributor

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#318

Post by andsoitis »

danpalmer wrote: post #60
costcofries wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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'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. I disagree. Diverse input results in better conversations – less of an echo chamber, less black and white…

> Diverse input results in better conversations

But how many different people are necessary to give the diversity of thought on a particular topic? I bet it is not many, certainly fewer than 100, maybe 50, or on some topics even just 20.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#319

Post by watwut »

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…

Nah. Basically, who will loose are topical experts who tweeted about what they knew well about. Layers tweeting about law, developers tweeting about frameworks, academics tweeting about crypto, viruses, history. These wont pay and will be less visible.

Who will pay will be grifters and ideologues.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#320

Post by rideontime »

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."

How does adding a new subscription feature and changing verification checkmarks to "secondary tags" level the playing field? https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1587527711228149765
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