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$1/month for every 10k followers over your first 10k. Small price to pay for "fame". 1,000,000 followers is $99/month. You don't think Trump and the Kardashian

$1/month for every 10k followers over your first 10k. Small price to pay for "fame". 1,000,000 followers is $99/month. You don't think Trump and the Kardashians would pay that for the voice it gives them to promote whatever they promote?

rorosaurus 10y ago
Interesting concept. Wouldn't this encourage people to create spam accounts to follow people to force them to pay / pay more?
- goatherders 10y ago
  Maybe. But then that would be the first time a Twitter had a spam problem to deal with. ;)
- RileyJames 10y ago
  There's no direct benefit to the spammer. More effort would go into pruning spammers (from those who are paying, spam protection services) and if twitter credited their account for any payments related to an account marked as spam it seems like it could work. Definitely an interesting model.
  - cuchoi 10y ago
    You are right but Twitter benefit from Spammer and the people that sells followers. They have no incentives to go after them. Any person that uses Twitter knows that many of their followers are bots/Spam.
    - lazyjones 10y ago
      That's very similar to the situation with click-based advertising in search engines. I wouldn't say that it isn't working for everyone involved (except those who pay the ads).
- ekianjo 10y ago
  Or encourage Twitter to generate fake accounts by themselves to adjust their revenue curve...
  - josu 10y ago
    Fiduciary duty
    - ahartman00 10y ago
      true, but see wells fargo. though they do seem to be paying for it. http://fortune.com/2017/01/13/wells-fargo-fake-accounts-scandal-closing-branches-earnings/ http://fortune.com/2017/01/13/wells-fargo-fake-accounts-scan...
xname2 10y ago
Will the service change the current top-comments-all-negative situation under all of Trump's posts?
- tmalsburg2 10y ago
  Serious question: What are you implying?
mdonahoe 10y ago
Does that block me from following someone who is maxed out?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- guelo 10y ago
  If they were to copy the Facebook model you could follow them but the tweets just wouldn't show up in your timeline except occasionally.
Illniyar 10y ago
That's actually a great idea, you charge the people who benefit the most from the service (IMO) and you charge more the more they benefit from it. It also correlates to the amount of resources used - the more resource intensive a user is the more he pays. It's also completely backwards to how social networks tend to work - you incentivize engagement not penalize it. If it works it will be a genius move, if it fails it will take the company with it.
- goatherders 10y ago
  Since the company is on such a strong financial trajectory now...
  - hulahoof 10y ago
    I think that is the parent posters point, most companies in the position Twitter is financially would go with a proven revenue model
    - goatherders 10y ago
      Not to be snarky, but I would think most companies with 2 billion in revenue and no major manufacturing or inventory expenses wouldn't be in twitters position
  - elastic_church 10y ago
    It is, the speculators bid its shares too high. Its revenue model is pretty stable.
- Navarr 10y ago
  followers is not a 1-1 indication of service benefit
sl8r 10y ago
Twitter had $2.5B of revenue in FY '16. The average user with more than 10k followers probably only has slightly more than 10k followers (because the distribution of followers/user has most of its mass near 0), so the average rev. per 10k+ user is almost certainly less than $2/month. So for this model to get TWTR near its current revenue, Twitter would need to have 104 million accounts with more than 10k followers. Twitter only has about 320 million MAUs. If you think that the % of MAUs with 10k+ followers is closer 0.1%, then the avg. monthly charge would need to be $7,800/month.
- ddebernardy 10y ago
  Of these 320M MAUs, curious to know how many are bots or actually use their site instead of access it using an app?
  - accountface 10y ago
    319M
  - strgrd 10y ago
    Twitter sez 5% of users are bots/automated services. Reality is closer to 20%
- goatherders 10y ago
  gettibg to it's current revenue levels implies replacing the ad model they have now. That seems like an unnecessary trade.
  - ahartman00 10y ago
    exactly. They lost $546m in 2016. Take that divided by the 320m mau's, and you have $1.425 per mau per year. make it an even $2 per year and they are profitable. Assuming they value the service enough ;) I like your plan better though
mathw 10y ago
Given that the major appeal of Twitter is the ease with which you can reach effectively unlimited numbers of people, I doubt that would be a very popular move. It might be more feasible to charge people for following other people. Or just offer a straightforward ad-free experience (maybe with some extra features) for a set monthly fee. Which is what I've wanted all along, but has the disadvantage of fracturing the userbase you can sell ads to and making Twitter a less valuable platform for advertisers, so they'd need a decent conversion rate to offset that. I now absolutely hate this thing where the internet is made of free stuff and people won't pay for it. I know a load of people who practically live on Facebook but the idea of paying for it horrifies them. Do not understand that.
kernelpaniced 10y ago
hahaha are you missing /s tag? You don't get how business works, Trump does not needs Twitter, Twitter needs him and Kardashians. Twitter has already lost Kardashian followers to Instagram. As others have pointed out this fails to generate any revenue, let alone recoup cost of implementing this single "feature".

rorosaurus 10y ago

Interesting concept. Wouldn't this encourage people to create spam accounts to follow people to force them to pay / pay more?

goatherders 10y ago
Maybe. But then that would be the first time a Twitter had a spam problem to deal with. ;)
RileyJames 10y ago
There's no direct benefit to the spammer. More effort would go into pruning spammers (from those who are paying, spam protection services) and if twitter credited their account for any payments related to an account marked as spam it seems like it could work. Definitely an interesting model.
- cuchoi 10y ago
  You are right but Twitter benefit from Spammer and the people that sells followers. They have no incentives to go after them. Any person that uses Twitter knows that many of their followers are bots/Spam.
  - lazyjones 10y ago
    That's very similar to the situation with click-based advertising in search engines. I wouldn't say that it isn't working for everyone involved (except those who pay the ads).
ekianjo 10y ago
Or encourage Twitter to generate fake accounts by themselves to adjust their revenue curve...
- josu 10y ago
  Fiduciary duty
  - ahartman00 10y ago
    true, but see wells fargo. though they do seem to be paying for it. http://fortune.com/2017/01/13/wells-fargo-fake-accounts-scandal-closing-branches-earnings/ http://fortune.com/2017/01/13/wells-fargo-fake-accounts-scan...

xname2 10y ago

Will the service change the current top-comments-all-negative situation under all of Trump's posts?

tmalsburg2 10y ago
Serious question: What are you implying?

mdonahoe 10y ago

Does that block me from following someone who is maxed out?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
guelo 10y ago
If they were to copy the Facebook model you could follow them but the tweets just wouldn't show up in your timeline except occasionally.

Illniyar 10y ago

That's actually a great idea, you charge the people who benefit the most from the service (IMO) and you charge more the more they benefit from it. It also correlates to the amount of resources used - the more resource intensive a user is the more he pays. It's also completely backwards to how social networks tend to work - you incentivize engagement not penalize it. If it works it will be a genius move, if it fails it will take the company with it.

goatherders 10y ago
Since the company is on such a strong financial trajectory now...
- hulahoof 10y ago
  I think that is the parent posters point, most companies in the position Twitter is financially would go with a proven revenue model
  - goatherders 10y ago
    Not to be snarky, but I would think most companies with 2 billion in revenue and no major manufacturing or inventory expenses wouldn't be in twitters position
- elastic_church 10y ago
  It is, the speculators bid its shares too high. Its revenue model is pretty stable.
Navarr 10y ago
followers is not a 1-1 indication of service benefit

sl8r 10y ago

Twitter had $2.5B of revenue in FY '16. The average user with more than 10k followers probably only has slightly more than 10k followers (because the distribution of followers/user has most of its mass near 0), so the average rev. per 10k+ user is almost certainly less than $2/month. So for this model to get TWTR near its current revenue, Twitter would need to have 104 million accounts with more than 10k followers. Twitter only has about 320 million MAUs. If you think that the % of MAUs with 10k+ followers is closer 0.1%, then the avg. monthly charge would need to be $7,800/month.

ddebernardy 10y ago
Of these 320M MAUs, curious to know how many are bots or actually use their site instead of access it using an app?
- accountface 10y ago
  319M
- strgrd 10y ago
  Twitter sez 5% of users are bots/automated services. Reality is closer to 20%
goatherders 10y ago
gettibg to it's current revenue levels implies replacing the ad model they have now. That seems like an unnecessary trade.
- ahartman00 10y ago
  exactly. They lost $546m in 2016. Take that divided by the 320m mau's, and you have $1.425 per mau per year. make it an even $2 per year and they are profitable. Assuming they value the service enough ;) I like your plan better though

mathw 10y ago

Given that the major appeal of Twitter is the ease with which you can reach effectively unlimited numbers of people, I doubt that would be a very popular move. It might be more feasible to charge people for following other people. Or just offer a straightforward ad-free experience (maybe with some extra features) for a set monthly fee. Which is what I've wanted all along, but has the disadvantage of fracturing the userbase you can sell ads to and making Twitter a less valuable platform for advertisers, so they'd need a decent conversion rate to offset that. I now absolutely hate this thing where the internet is made of free stuff and people won't pay for it. I know a load of people who practically live on Facebook but the idea of paying for it horrifies them. Do not understand that.

kernelpaniced 10y ago

hahaha are you missing /s tag? You don't get how business works, Trump does not needs Twitter, Twitter needs him and Kardashians. Twitter has already lost Kardashian followers to Instagram. As others have pointed out this fails to generate any revenue, let alone recoup cost of implementing this single "feature".