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Twitter Blue for $8/Month

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Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#481

Post by Melting_Harps »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #439
enumjorge wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your point here's a tweet from Stephen King that was making the rounds where he protests the idea that he should be paying Twitter instead of the reverse: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1587312517679878144

And I agree with Stephen King. YouTube rewards content creators and provides a strong platform for creators to market themselves. Twitter provides a platform for brain farts and now they want to charge for a blue checkmark. I guess Musk believes if people are stupid enough to believe in his lies before that they'll be stupid enough to pay for a blue checkmark. Wait until you see how they begin marketing the subscript…

> Might as well be trying to sell snake oil.

Look at LV 'hyperloop' [0], and people who paid upfront for FSD [1] and are issuing a class action lawsuit and re-think what you just said about 'might.' I think this isn't about Tesla or SpaceX or any specific company he is CEO of as they are all amazing feats of tech/engineering, it's about Elon's horrible PT Barnum type marketing that worked for a bit but has lost all of it's luster at this point.

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htJcPEXn040 1: jhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htJcPEXn040

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#482

Post by ABeeSea »

koonsolo wrote: post #421
resoluteteeth wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "content" here is just tweets. It may not be "content" in the way you are imagining, but it's still true that almost all twitter users are using the site to view tweets from a small number of people (call them content creators or influencers if you like) with large numbers of followers.

Sure, but that small number of people are already famous outside of twitter. YouTube and TikTok creates new celebrities, twitter doesn't.

I’d argue this isn’t true in sports journalism. A news tweet from Woj, Schefter, Rappoport, or Shams has far more reach than the same content in a random ESPN article or sportscenter segment. Without twitter, a whole world of addicted sports fans would have no idea who those guys are.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#483

Post by registeredcorn »

sliken wrote: post #459

Seems pretty weird to me. I read an article that the top 5% of users are responsible for 90% of tweets and most of the profit. Said 5% have been leaving the platform for the last few months. Now there's a $8/Month incentive for the top users to leave ... seems backwards. They should be paying the top users to stay so the 95% has something to read. Imagine if youtube creators had to pay instead of be paid.

>Imagine if youtube creators had to pay instead of be paid.

Isn't that essentially what demonetization is, just without the predictability of a regular monthly bill?

Granted, it's not a perfect 1:1, I just wanted to find an excuse to snipe at YouTube.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#484

Post by carbine »

UncleMeat wrote: post #159
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 don't quite think it is luck - but a weird second thing. Musk has a reality distortion field. I think he is a bloviating jerk but I know a lot of really really smart and dedicated engineers in software and in more traditional fields like mech-e and aerospace who would rather work for Musk than any other person and are willing to take pay cuts to work for him. This means he really can surround himself with very skil…

this is such a cynical take

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#486

Post by Fomite »

slg wrote: post #103
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…

>making verification only about ID and being a real person is a broadly good change Where does he say there will be any verification around ID? Twitter needs to make sure that I can't just name my account @WhiteHouseCommunications and pay $8 to get a blue checkmark. The whole point of the blue checkmark was to personally review those accounts to make sure they are who they say they are. Is Twitter still going to put…

This.

The conflating of an authentically derived status ("This person is real") with a paid form of status both defeats the purpose of the first, and is somewhat telling about a particular mindset.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#487

Post by TeMPOraL »

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #455
TeMPOraL wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s fascinating to glimpse these endless mental contortions about the immense significance of tweaks to a social media profile flag. I don’t think anyone cares except those same billionaires/VCs and journalists (...) Would you say the same about GitHub stars? There's no end of people obsessing about those, completely oblivious to the fact that they're first and foremost bookmarks , and do not confer any particular…

Weird, I've never heard of people obsessing over GitHub stars. I guess if you're not actively contributing to open source projects, it's not something you care about.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33309969 for a recent thread on this.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#488

Post by carbine »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #174
minimaxir wrote: post #5

The price 100% was $20/mo as previously reported by journalists until Twitter dunked on it, and Elon's interpretation of the backlash is "the price is too high" and not "any price makes no sense at all." This pricing clarification is most likely due to Stephen King's complaint: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1587312517679878144 > We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How…

"Elon, what made you decide on $8?" "I was going to charge $20, but then Stephen King told me it was too much."

or they were anchoring the price at $20 so $8 feels like a deal. not rocket science. :P

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#489

Post by tonetheman »

cmelbye wrote: post #104
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…

> $8 is way more than the profitability of an ad supported user. I don't think so. Twitter's ARPU from advertising in Q2 2022 was around $4.50. ARPU from advertising in the US was more than $14. Users likely to subscribe at $8/month (power users in western countries) are more valuable than average for advertising. No ads for $8/month would probably be a very bad idea.

paying 8 dollars for a checkmark is also a bad idea... putting trump back on twitter is also a huge bad idea...

he is full of bad ideas and will bring twitter down with most of them

though I like the idea of bringing vine back.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#490

Post by Karrot_Kream »

freejazz wrote: post #436
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I am not a heavy enough Twitter user for this to affect me at all, so I'm just curious to see if Musk's gamble works. He's gambling that the network effect is as important for Verified users as it is for non-Verified users, which is not a bet most other creator-based social media sites have made. Judging by the number/temperature of comments you've made about this topic over the last two days, I think you're…

I'm not a twitter user either, I'm not sure what that has to do with viewing Musk's actions as either being good or bad faith. That seems like a limiting and bizarre way to view things. Similarly, I didn't accuse you of being inappropriately emotionally invested... I'm more fascinated that people see someone doing something wildly illogical and then say to themselves, "well it's Musk, he must have his reasons"... yea…

> Similarly, I didn't accuse you of being inappropriately emotionally invested...

Sorry I think I read something that wasn't there, apologies. My bad for being jumpy.

> I'm more fascinated that people see someone doing something wildly illogical and then say to themselves, "well it's Musk, he must have his reasons"... yeah, I'm sure he has his reasons. That doesn't mean they are good and I have no idea why anyone would assume so given how all of this transpired.

For me it's curiosity. Twitter always seems like the struggling social media. Unable to really make a revenue despite it's disproportionate influence in developed nation discourse. At this point, I consider Musk to be a loose canon and I would not do business with him unless costs appropriately reflected risks.

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