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Twitter previews Ticketed Spaces
- powerlogic31 5y agoThe real winner here is Apple and Google they get so much for almost doing nothing. 100% - $10 // 30% - $3 to Apple // 20% of 7 - $1.7 to Twitter (+inclusive of stripe fees) // 80% of 7 - $5.6 to host // Apple and Google makes more money than the product itself. haha
- dhritzkiv 5y agoI was under the impression that the slice going to the creator is exempt from Apple's cut. That being said, there's probably no way (with Apple's APIs) to specify what %age is going to the creator, and what % is going to fees. Perhaps this exemption only applies when 100% of the proceeds go to the creator (as is the case with Twitter's Super Follow)
- input_sh 5y ago> $5.6 to host Before taxes. I'd be very surprised if the host gets even $4 afterwards.
- asiachick 5y agoI can't wait for the day the car companies want a cut of every business "their car" delivered you to
- dogma1138 5y agoUber tried to do that with restaurants you essentially book a reservation and ride through uber you can even preorder the food through the app.
- whymauri 5y agoDid Uber lose the self-driving car race yet? Please tell me they did.
- judge2020 5y ago> Uber sells self-driving unit https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/07/uber-sells-self-driving-unit-uber-atg-in-deal-that-will-push-auroras-valuation-to-10b/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/07/uber-sells-self-driving-un... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25337553 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25337553
- whymauri 5y agothank god
- 8note 5y agoGoogle's still in it, so you could still expect to be giving google a cut of everything that happens on one
- tracer4201 5y agoEverything seems to have a subscription model these days. In my personal opinion, I’d rather pay for a service I really want instead of this “free” model where it annoys me with ads. I don’t fully understand the value proposition of Ticketed Spaces, although to be honest I understand the value proposition of social media - it seems to be voyeurism and exhibitionism with folks pretending to have a lifestyle that’s not sustainable or real in the first place. I cancelled my Prime membership because as a paying Prime member, I don’t think my search results should be plastered with ads. I already paid you for a premium experience. Don’t insult me with cheap Chinese flea market garbage.
- cvwright 5y agoDon’t think that Twitter will suddenly stop showing you ads just because you paid them. They really are fundamentally an advertising company. The microblogging thing is just how they get eyeballs onto their ads. We’ve been here before, with cable TV. And before that, with newspapers and magazines.
- 8note 5y agoA paying customer is a better target for ads, too. They've already shown the willingness to pay for something
- echelon 5y agoThis is the best analogy I have ever read for what big tech is doing. Apple and Google are unreasonable monopolies, and they shouldn't have total platform control.
- newbie578 5y agoGreat analogy, I just fear the classic answer will popup “Imagine if you wish to sell your product inside Walmart”...
- dlevine 5y agoI'm not sure whether most people just care about the 44% cut, but ticketed spaces does sound like a pretty interesting experiment. I have been a bit skeptical about the whole Clubhouse craze, but this does seem like a reasonable starting point to build a business model around live chat.
- notamy 5y ago> ticketed spaces does sound like a pretty interesting experiment. > this does seem like a reasonable starting point to build a business model around live chat. Discord is doing something similar with their stage channels[0], including paid tickets etc. It makes a lot of sense since their whole business model is around text and audio/video chat already. [0] https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500005513722-Stage-Channels-FAQ https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500005513722-...
- tiernano 5y agoHow the hell does that work?! >The company is partnering with Stripe to handle payments, and it says users will receive 80 percent of revenue after Apple and Google’s in-app purchase fees are taken if Stripe take payments, how do Apple/Google get involed at all?!
- thirtyseven 5y agoStripe is probably handling the payout to the host.
- tiernano 5y agoahhh.... that kind of now makes sense...
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- kasperni 5y agoAnd then you have to pay tax to the government on top. Not much left of a 10$ ticket...
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- monkeybutton 5y agoI really feel like some of the cuts these companies are taking should just be a flat fee. A ticket takes the same amount of compute and bandwidth to process whether it's $10 or $100. It's been a while since I've gone to a show but aren't the much reviled TicketMaster's fees still a flat amount?
- V99 5y agoThey have many fees, some of which used to include paying for the convenience of printing your own ticket at home, but the majority is a percentage of ticket price.
- Traster 5y agoI think there's a lot to be gained by really digging into this. There's no revenue tax for corporations in the US, the tax on profits is 21% - so Apple is taking more in revenue than those ARPANET guys are taking on profits. There are a lot more comparisons to be made than are warranted by a HN comment, but it's pretty bad. And actually, while I'm here - why don't the ARPANET guys take more? Because it makes everyone better off if they don't.
- revel 5y agoWild that Apple/Google take a larger cut than Twitter. That's some mighty impressive rent seeking.
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- echelon 5y agoAnd the DOJ needs to break it up. If we continue to trend in this direction, Apple and Google will own 30% of all commerce in America. It's not okay, and it isn't legal. The DOJ hasn't been focused enough to shut them down. The simple fix is to disallow app stores and "pay with Apple/Google". But if if it requires that the companies are broken into pieces, so be it. If you're running a startup today, how on earth do you rationalize competing with these absurd giants? They're eating our lunch, and the only reason they can do so is monopoly power. I realize that Apple and Google employees and stockholders may have different views, but this isn't an equitable or healthy market.
- enos_feedler 5y agoYou rationalize it by asking: am I competing with Apple or building on top of them? Does my business exist to steal share from Apple, or does by business exist _because_ of Apple. If its the former, you find ways of not “feeding the beast” to serve your growing share. Airbnb turned off Google ads. Snap built Spectacles. Facebook built Portal. Spotify built Car Thing. If its the later, you bite the bullet and chalk it up to business expenses. You appreciate the wonderful world you do business and grow by innovating on top of the platform ie) more apps, more app features, etc. This is the path of Twitter. Or you can choose to be bitter, which is the path of Epic, Match group, etc. In the end these are the losers, IMO
- wayneftw 5y ago> In the end these are the losers, IMO. Apple built their business on the capitalist platform of this country. If the other businesses and people in this country decide that Apple is doing wrong then we will basically flip that right on its lid. It's up to the courts now. Apple is getting attacked from many different angles and they'll definitely lose some degree of control eventually.
- endisneigh 5y agoIt’s incredible how much of tech is just scalping. I’m curious what loopholes exist for this - if you charge for coupons on your own site and a hosted space required a coupon but was otherwise not possible to use, would you still have to pay Apple?
- bellyfullofbac 5y agoHah, imagine if someone makes a competitor. Is Twitter going to ban me tweeting to my 1000+ followers to come pay to see my talk at (some URL)? Or just derank that tweet so that very few people see it? (At which point the anti-competitive lawsuit should be interesting..)
- rchaud 5y agoA competitor would be a password-protected Zoom meeting with a Ko-fi button.
- echelon 5y agoI can understand Twitter taking a cut, but Apple and Google deserve no part of this. Hopefully this is more fuel for the rage machine that will shut this racket down. Device manufacturers should not be allowed to do the following: 1. run monopoly marketplaces on their devices 2. run any payments gateways on their devices If Apple Pay and Google Pay continue to be a thing, the DOJ needs to force the companies to be broken up into distinct business units. Let these organizations compete with Visa, PayPal, and the like on equal footing.
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- koolba 5y ago> The company is partnering with Stripe to handle payments, and it says users will receive 80 percent of revenue after Apple and Google’s in-app purchase fees are taken. Why go with Stripe when their CEO is also the CEO of Square? Avoiding self dealing or lost on the merits?
- nexuist 5y agoMy understanding is that Square is solely a payment collector, you can't send funds out of Square to other accounts like you can with Stripe. If Twitter had went with Square then I think every Spaces creator would have to set up their own Square account in order to receive payments.
- dbbk 5y agoBecause Square doesn’t have this feature?
- singhkays 5y agoBen Thompson had a wild take on this https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/1395766118304780292 https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/1395766118304780292 > A creator sells a Ticketed Space for $5. The creator, who people are willing to pay for, gets $2.80. Twitter, who facilitated the connection and created the product, gets $0.70. Apple/Google, who leverage OS API control into a tax on all activity, do nothing and get $1.50. > Imagine people arguing in 1998 that Microsoft deserves 30% of all software sales with zero alternatives allowed lmao
- jachee 5y ago"Do nothing"? No curated/moderated/policed App Store? No storage/distribution network for applications? No vetted and trusted secure authentication and payment systems? No meticulously-created hardware in the first place? Yep, that sounds about right. They're just "doing nothing" and don't deserve to be able to run their businesses while other people build on top of their platforms.
- paulgb 5y agoI agree that “do nothing” is inaccurate (I think Ben later walked it back). But overall, I'm surprised how common the take is in the software industry that this is a fine state of things. How much of Apple's cut is because they run a good distribution network, vs. how much is because they are the only distribution channel? Surely we don't think it's a bad thing that desktop software went in the direction of being an open platform (which, it's worth noting, may not have gone in that direction without DOJ intervention). Why aren't we rooting for the same on mobile devices, which have become just as essential?
- cmorgan31 5y agoIf I want a walled garden should I be allowed to have it? I understand individuals want to exercise control over things they own. I’m not interested in forcing brands to make their products open platform. I don’t want an open platform. I want a locked down and predictable platform. If you would rather argue that the distributor fee is too high I’d be inclined to agree.
- lgats 5y agoThe company is partnering with Stripe to handle payments, and it says users will receive 80 percent of revenue after Apple and Google’s in-app purchase fees are taken. if stripe is handling the payments, how is a portion of this routed to Apple / Google?
- tdeck 5y agoMaybe they're only using Stripe to remit the payment to the seller.
- nexuist 5y agoThis is my thought as well, Stripe is so creators can withdraw their earnings once Twitter has collected them through IAP. You can't use a Stripe checkout in app unless you sell physical products.
- vageli 5y ago> You can't use a Stripe checkout in app unless you sell physical products. I'm partly surprised that people have not done something like sell postcards of QR codes linking to their digital product or something in lieu of selling digital items directly, just to point out the absurdity of it all.
- joshstrange 5y agoYeah, that part makes no sense to me. If you use IAP for Google/Apple there is no need for Stripe (other than maybe payouts to creators?). Or maybe Stripe is for when you pay on the web?
- TYPE_FASTER 5y agoCould be worse, Ticketmaster would probably add a $15 fee on top of the $5 ticket. Then, buy them all out themselves, and sell them back at highly inflated prices.
- akersten 5y agoI was expecting to open the comments here and see talk about how the technical side of this would work - if Twitter is going to limit this to the app, enforce some kind of DRM in-browser, to keep these spaces private. Speculation on how they'd be preventing re-broadcasting, how this could disrupt Clubhouse, etc. Sadly every single top-level comment is about the IAP fees, a tired and unproductive line of discussion.
- uncomputation 5y agoSame here. I’m curious to know what happened in Twitter the past year or so or however long these products have been under development. Twitter languished for years and their only acquisitions (Vine, Periscope) both failed. Now all of a sudden it seems, they have Fleets, Spaces, Ticketed Spaces, Twitter Blue, Super Follow, etc. Did I miss a CEO change?
- belatw 5y agoWill facebook, instagram and linkedin follow up with the same feature in three weeks?
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- Traster 5y agoIt's pretty fascinating to see the conversation here. No talk of the product at all (not surprising, twitter is about a decade behind in product innovation) but it really feel's like this is the perfect product to attack Google and Apple. It takes the most sympathetic group of people - individual content creators, it gives them a tool at a pretty tight margin - 16% and then slams the hammer down on you "30% goes to Apple" so that they can continue to sell thousand dollar phones. But... why on earth is Twitter picking this fight. Have they done it accidentally? They're not at a scale for this to pay off for them, and other companies are already doing the heavy lifting. This is a fight Twitter doesn't need.
- Black101 5y agoAre you going to be limited as to how many words you can say?