4 ms·

What I'd like is a "Twitter made $x from you in the last year through showing you ads. Click here to pay us $2x and not see any for the next year."

drham 8y ago
Among many other reasons referenced by others, the users who would be willing to fork over a subscription fee to access twitter are exactly the demographic that twitter needs in order to keep its advertising attractive to marketers. A successful subscription option for a service like twitter would greatly diminish the value of their advertising inventory.
newjobhelp 8y ago
Couldn't that get awfully expensive for people with lots of followers?
- amelius 8y ago
  Perhaps people with lots of followers should be able to make money on Twitter, just like people with lots of views make money on YouTube.
benreesman 8y ago
“I’m rich relative to the mean Twitter audience, please ruin your business model for something that is privilege at best and crypto-HN virtue signaling at worst.” It’s been awhile since I’ve had the chance to measure the caliber of Twitter’s finance quants, but last I knew it was pretty fucking hard to get past the phone screen for that job. I enjoyed jousting with them.
- wpietri 8y ago
  Oh, please. Twitter's average revenue per user is something like $2-3 per quarter. Your notion that you have to be some kind of Scrooge McDuck to spend $25/year on a Twitter Premium subscription is ridiculous. Jamming "virtue signaling" into places where it doesn't fit is its own kind of virtue signaling.
  - hdhddidxhxcj 8y ago
    Given Twatters ongoing censorship of all things outside their authoritarian militant left wing circle jerk view mentality, I am surprised there is much left to show or even report on?
  - sidr 8y ago
    Even amongst those who say they would pay $25/year for Twitter premium, we'd first have to account for stated vs. revealed preferences of how many would actually pay. I can't speak about you as an individual, but study after study has shown that this can be a huge effect. And keep in mind, this is only among privacy minded tech people. The vast majority of social media users do not give a shit about this (and will explicitly say so). Also, I imagine the people who are willing to pay for Twitter premium are highly correlated with the people who constantly rail about social media and threaten to quit/actually do quit. For those people, switching to a paid model is just going to provide the impetus to go ahead and quit anyway. All of which serve to bring the per user expenses up, but then increasing the cost of online services usually prompts a huge hue and cry (see: every time Netflix ups their prices), so you can't keep up with inflation even. And so people start quitting, and then due to network effects everyone else also starts quitting and the service dies. This is not in Twitter/Facebook's best interest and rest assured, they will not ever do it.
    - wpietri 8y ago
      I don't think anybody's suggesting Twitter move to only having a paid offering, which I agree would be fatal. I also suspect the market of people who really would pay is not large enough for them to bother with, but it depends on what they put in the premium version. Dropping ads is easy to implement, but is a niche market. On the other hand, being able to create private spaces could be huge. And they do a decent business in access to data that nobody seems to mind.
matt4077 8y ago
It's been tried. Most directly by Google, but almost any publisher on the internet has tested various forms of subscription model. While some high-quality publications (the New York Times, Economist, etc.) have seen some success in recent years, the overwhelming evidence is that the economics just don't work out among the general public. Most people also underestimate the costs. IIRC, Google needs about $100/pa to supplant advertising revenue. Yes, you may be willing to pay, so why aren't more services willing to take your money? Apart from the administrative hassle of such a program, the $100 (or whatever) are also an average. People willing to pay as much for an ad-free experience just happen to be at the top end of the value distribution for advertisers as well. In other words: If you're willing to give me 2bucks, it's gonna cost you 5!
- whatshisface 8y ago
  You should get a discount if you never click on ads. I've been blocking them for years, so any subscriptions I sign up for are 100% free money. The same is true of people who block ads mentally.
- throwaway76543 8y ago
  Google is currently selling this service for youtube, branded "youtube red." It costs $10/mo and as part of that they also offer to repair some of the crippleware in the youtube app. It doesn't seem worth it, to me. I need ad blockers anyway for other ad services and annoyances so I end up just avoiding their built-in ad-riddled apps and going through a browser for things like youtube. It's a poor experience but better than dealing with ads. I understand the value prop for shipping crippleware apps in a low cost android phone, but they ship the same stuff on flagship $1k phones like the pixel. It's a bizarre choice.
  - CPLX 8y ago
    I pay it. For the most part I'm pretty happy about it. I fucking hate ads, and I do like watching YouTube videos. It's a straightforward model.
    - 8y ago

drham 8y ago

Among many other reasons referenced by others, the users who would be willing to fork over a subscription fee to access twitter are exactly the demographic that twitter needs in order to keep its advertising attractive to marketers. A successful subscription option for a service like twitter would greatly diminish the value of their advertising inventory.

newjobhelp 8y ago

Couldn't that get awfully expensive for people with lots of followers?

amelius 8y ago
Perhaps people with lots of followers should be able to make money on Twitter, just like people with lots of views make money on YouTube.

benreesman 8y ago

“I’m rich relative to the mean Twitter audience, please ruin your business model for something that is privilege at best and crypto-HN virtue signaling at worst.” It’s been awhile since I’ve had the chance to measure the caliber of Twitter’s finance quants, but last I knew it was pretty fucking hard to get past the phone screen for that job. I enjoyed jousting with them.

wpietri 8y ago
Oh, please. Twitter's average revenue per user is something like $2-3 per quarter. Your notion that you have to be some kind of Scrooge McDuck to spend $25/year on a Twitter Premium subscription is ridiculous. Jamming "virtue signaling" into places where it doesn't fit is its own kind of virtue signaling.
- hdhddidxhxcj 8y ago
  Given Twatters ongoing censorship of all things outside their authoritarian militant left wing circle jerk view mentality, I am surprised there is much left to show or even report on?
- sidr 8y ago
  Even amongst those who say they would pay $25/year for Twitter premium, we'd first have to account for stated vs. revealed preferences of how many would actually pay. I can't speak about you as an individual, but study after study has shown that this can be a huge effect. And keep in mind, this is only among privacy minded tech people. The vast majority of social media users do not give a shit about this (and will explicitly say so). Also, I imagine the people who are willing to pay for Twitter premium are highly correlated with the people who constantly rail about social media and threaten to quit/actually do quit. For those people, switching to a paid model is just going to provide the impetus to go ahead and quit anyway. All of which serve to bring the per user expenses up, but then increasing the cost of online services usually prompts a huge hue and cry (see: every time Netflix ups their prices), so you can't keep up with inflation even. And so people start quitting, and then due to network effects everyone else also starts quitting and the service dies. This is not in Twitter/Facebook's best interest and rest assured, they will not ever do it.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    I don't think anybody's suggesting Twitter move to only having a paid offering, which I agree would be fatal. I also suspect the market of people who really would pay is not large enough for them to bother with, but it depends on what they put in the premium version. Dropping ads is easy to implement, but is a niche market. On the other hand, being able to create private spaces could be huge. And they do a decent business in access to data that nobody seems to mind.

matt4077 8y ago

It's been tried. Most directly by Google, but almost any publisher on the internet has tested various forms of subscription model. While some high-quality publications (the New York Times, Economist, etc.) have seen some success in recent years, the overwhelming evidence is that the economics just don't work out among the general public. Most people also underestimate the costs. IIRC, Google needs about $100/pa to supplant advertising revenue. Yes, you may be willing to pay, so why aren't more services willing to take your money? Apart from the administrative hassle of such a program, the $100 (or whatever) are also an average. People willing to pay as much for an ad-free experience just happen to be at the top end of the value distribution for advertisers as well. In other words: If you're willing to give me 2bucks, it's gonna cost you 5!

whatshisface 8y ago
You should get a discount if you never click on ads. I've been blocking them for years, so any subscriptions I sign up for are 100% free money. The same is true of people who block ads mentally.
throwaway76543 8y ago
Google is currently selling this service for youtube, branded "youtube red." It costs $10/mo and as part of that they also offer to repair some of the crippleware in the youtube app. It doesn't seem worth it, to me. I need ad blockers anyway for other ad services and annoyances so I end up just avoiding their built-in ad-riddled apps and going through a browser for things like youtube. It's a poor experience but better than dealing with ads. I understand the value prop for shipping crippleware apps in a low cost android phone, but they ship the same stuff on flagship $1k phones like the pixel. It's a bizarre choice.
- CPLX 8y ago
  I pay it. For the most part I'm pretty happy about it. I fucking hate ads, and I do like watching YouTube videos. It's a straightforward model.
  - 8y ago