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I think I understand that argument, but I'm not convinced that it's really all that true or that the actual button being added to Twitter was all that consequen

I think I understand that argument, but I'm not convinced that it's really all that true or that the actual button being added to Twitter was all that consequential. Is a manual task like copy/paste and writing quotemarks really enough "friction" to reduce what seems like a pretty natural human drive on social media? Would doing it over and over again not make it just as "automatic" as a single button push for power users, even if it's not as convenient? We also don't have the benefit of looking at the counterfactual situation where the retweet button wasn't implemented. Maybe keeping manual retweeting would just result in a worse kind of "dunking" that had the extra dynamic of the retweeters subtly tweaking the wording of the quoted tweet. Besides, if Twitter didn't implement the retweet button then the hoards of 3rd-party apps or some Twitter alternative probably would anyway.

1123581321 7y ago
The article says Twitter saw a lot more retweeting after implementing the button. (“After the retweet button debuted, Wetherell was struck by how effectively it spread information. “It did a lot of what it was designed to do,” he said. “It had a force multiplier that other things didn’t have.”) It seems like they saw an immediate change in behavior and results, enough to conclude the button directly affected behavior. My anecdotal experience was similar. Though I agree we will never know how effective would have been the third party tools or how much the delay in third-vs-first-party development would have affected Twitter’s growth.