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> But more importantly, Apple could run Twitter at a loss as a data platform around their product. This is something I don't understand. Pardon me if this soun

> But more importantly, Apple could run Twitter at a loss as a data platform around their product. This is something I don't understand. Pardon me if this sounds pie in the sky but how much does it cost to RUN Twitter without any expectations of profit? It seems like the people here in the conversation have knowledge that I lack about Twitter's expenses. It probably is public information but I can't find anything satisfying from a cursory Google search. Anyone want to help me out? If Twitter were to tighten it's belt today, how would it's operating expenses look like? I remember talking to Justin TV (precursors to twitch) folks and they said operating a live streaming site wasn't expensive and that one ad every couple of hours was enough to keep the lights on. I imagine running Twitter should be cheaper except for maybe dealing with SMS providers but Twitter is big enough that it could ask for special treatment from telecom providers to get a favorable rate if not to not have to pay anything entirely. I understand that I'm asking two different questions here. One is how much it costs to operate Twitter at a profit versus what it costs to run Twitter at all (and I'm thinking like a highly upscaled https://mastodon.social https://mastodon.social than anything Twitter is today, none of this augmented reality play). I do understand that to make a profit, Twitter must be spending heavily to pour over analytics day and night to find s breakthrough but if you remove the need to make a profit, things should be less hectic, right?

basch 10y ago
exactly. twitter SHOULD be a fairly cheap company to run if it focused on its main platform and not its profit platform. plus, if Apple bought twitter, twitter could go back to what it was, before it closed access to its apis/firehose. Twitter was the developers, developers, developers haven, that Apple/TheAppstore should LOVE to have. Everyone and their mom wanted to write an app ontop of the twitter datastream. In my crazy delusional mind, Apple should buy Twitter, strip it of everything that is not communication (such as growth strategy, marketing, sales, ads) and merge it into the AppStore as a api/service provided by Apple. Similar to Microsoft's Azure/Cognitive AI type stuff. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-services/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-service... Obviously they would need to keep the API open to Android apps as well, but I think it would be a good first shot at Google/Facebooks/Microsofts recognition that you have to cater to other platforms, and it would be a way to ensure iOS apps continue to be first class citizens compared to Android. Twitter would be available to Android devs, but it would always be more tightly integrated to iOS. At some point, if Apple wants to continue to be a software player, they might need to buy a marketing company, like say Adobe Marketing Cloud. Owning twitter would make them lucratively competitive against Salesforce/Dynamics etc. The reason I think Apple cant buy twitter is harassment. Twitters free speech values conflict with Apple's happy image.

basch 10y ago

exactly. twitter SHOULD be a fairly cheap company to run if it focused on its main platform and not its profit platform. plus, if Apple bought twitter, twitter could go back to what it was, before it closed access to its apis/firehose. Twitter was the developers, developers, developers haven, that Apple/TheAppstore should LOVE to have. Everyone and their mom wanted to write an app ontop of the twitter datastream. In my crazy delusional mind, Apple should buy Twitter, strip it of everything that is not communication (such as growth strategy, marketing, sales, ads) and merge it into the AppStore as a api/service provided by Apple. Similar to Microsoft's Azure/Cognitive AI type stuff. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-services/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-service... Obviously they would need to keep the API open to Android apps as well, but I think it would be a good first shot at Google/Facebooks/Microsofts recognition that you have to cater to other platforms, and it would be a way to ensure iOS apps continue to be first class citizens compared to Android. Twitter would be available to Android devs, but it would always be more tightly integrated to iOS. At some point, if Apple wants to continue to be a software player, they might need to buy a marketing company, like say Adobe Marketing Cloud. Owning twitter would make them lucratively competitive against Salesforce/Dynamics etc. The reason I think Apple cant buy twitter is harassment. Twitters free speech values conflict with Apple's happy image.