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Twitter Blue for $8/Month

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Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#531

Post by CydeWeys »

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.

Are your figures per year? Because Twitter Blue would be $8 per month.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#533

Post by tptacek »

memish wrote: post #529
sangnoir wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet Musk was in his replies, haggling.

He wasn't haggling. He was mocking the blue check status symbol in King's face and audience. $8 makes it cheaper than a Netflix subscription for something that previously exclusive and had no dollar value attached to it. It was literally unbuyable.

We're not really discussing reality if you believe that Stephen King gets status from the blue check rather than it working the other way around. There are people that do (sadly, pathetically) extract status from blue checkmarks, but they're only able to do that because people like Stephen King play ball with this system. The "blue checkmark status" could literally be phrased as "people as high-status as Stephen King and those like him".

Obviously, substitute Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Selena Gomez, and LeBron in as appropriate to your particular interests.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#534

Post by sangnoir »

dangerboysteve wrote: post #328
tommica wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't follow famous people. Way too much noise. I follow dev and engineering stuff.

> Way too much noise. I follow dev and engineering stuff

Now imagine the people you follow being deprioritized by the Twitter algorithm in favor of the LinkedIn-influencer types (you know they'll be first in line for the checkmarks)

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#535

Post by tppiotrowski »

Twitter should have SaaS pricing:

Up to 1000 followers = free tier

1000 - 100,000 followers = $8/month

100,000+ followers = Call us

Edit: The fact that Truth Social was bankrolled to the tune of millions of dollars should illustrate the value of being able to tweet to the masses.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#536

Post by CydeWeys »

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…

The distortion field has been significantly fading over the past couple years. And it might be gone entirely soon enough depending on how poorly the Twitter acquisition turns out to be.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#537

Post by Entinel »

peter422 wrote: post #521
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're famous, you'll almost certainly have a twitter account, although there are obviously exceptions. The same just doesn't seem to go for YouTube. Creating content on YT is a lot more time-consuming than creating it on Twitter, of course.

This is why YouTube is a platform with value and Twitter isn't.

Marketing on Twitter is far more valuable than other platforms.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#538

Post by awb »

oceanplexian wrote: post #385
seydor wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing good. When everyone can buy a checkmark, it becomes nothing. The next step is "only allow replies from blue checkmarks" both are bad ideas, and solely because of musk's obsession with bots. Without a mob to prop up people with retweets, twitter will be useless. You cant have the good parts without the ugly parts

Everyone can’t buy a checkmark. Bots will be almost impossible to scale at $8/mo, which means if you deprioritize or hide content from bots without the check, Twitter has a realistic shot at eliminating the bot problem.

If you can create a new account, pay $8 for a checkmark and run a viral promotion (or scam), it's certainly profitable.

Before you couldn't trust non-checkmarks. Now you can't trust any account.

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#539

Post by juliusdavies »

tptacek wrote: post #530
memish wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that someone who is addicted to Twitter and worth $500M would leave because they lose their special Blue Check over $20 is hilarious. He's just butt hurt because the VIP room and symbol is being opened to the proles. Now any schlub with $8 can have the once exclusive symbol.

Anywhere Stephen King writes, he'll have an audience. That's what's so funny about this particular example. There are indeed Twitter celebrities who depend on Twitter for their audience, but King isn't one of them: he's pumping more credibility into Twitter than he's extracting from it, and the platform (and all the Twitter celebrity remora attached to it) depend on people like him to keep doing it. He's right: Twitt…

Instead it should be $1/month to be allowed to post replies to blue-check tweets! (But leave quote-tweeting alone).

Re: Twitter Blue for $8/Month

#540

Post by cyanydeez »

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…

As Elon said, the bots are the most valuable
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