4 ms·

I think Twitter's business model should be to charge users based on the number of followers they have. Give them a free threshold of say 10K followers, and then

I think Twitter's business model should be to charge users based on the number of followers they have. Give them a free threshold of say 10K followers, and then charge them a fee after that. Users clearly benefit, and often profit, from their large follower base. Twitter should profit from it too.

idiot_stick 10y ago
>Give them a free threshold of say 10K followers, and then charge them a fee after that. Users clearly benefit, and often profit, from their large follower base. Twitter should profit from it too. Interesting idea, in theory. In reality, the "thought leaders" will simply move to another platform that is "free". Is Twitter markedly different than Facebook/G+/Instagram/Snapchat/email?
- r00fus 10y ago
  Wouldn't it be more social (in the sense that human organizations are often hierarchical/weblike) in this way? You are a thought leader - you'd want to have your immediate 10k followers to retweet your message to their groups. If you absolutely needed more leverage, you'd pay for the privilege.
  - tynpeddler 10y ago
    The 'thought leaders' are the product. They're the reason new people sign up. It would probably be better to implement something like twitch where you can 'subscribe' to someone with lots of followers for a small fee that twitter can take their cut of.
ng12 10y ago
Or the inverse -- the Patreon model. Twitter already had the hard stuff down (network effect, verified users). Add some content distribution model and bingo, paid followers.
pvdebbe 10y ago
And now script kiddies would be blackmailing prominent beginners: "pay us $1k or we get 25k bots to follow you".