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I love Twitter and use it every day. Unlike many other sites, owned by tech-giants, I have a lot of goodwill for them and think if anyone can prove that social-

by Yaina 5y ago

I love Twitter and use it every day. Unlike many other sites, owned by tech-giants, I have a lot of goodwill for them and think if anyone can prove that social-media users can be paying customers, it's them. It's just a bummer that Twitter Blue is not removing ads. I assume they're not going ad-free because they don't want to cannibalise their ad-business. As in: You can't say your ads are so great and helpful and also offer a way to turn them off. That might decrease the value of their ads? But it's also the reason I'm a bit on the fence here. I want to be part of the message that says: "Yes, I'm willing to pay for you Twitter!" but without removing ads (and frankly with a pretty bad value prop here) it's not an easy sell.

CamelCaseName 5y ago
Does it ever make sense to sell the ability to turn off ads? I imagine the majority of people willing to pay for such an option are power users, the same group that likely generates the bulk of advertising revenues and lives in countries with high CPC.
- MatekCopatek 5y ago
  Well, Youtube Premium does it, so does Hulu, and I'm sure there's other examples.
  - Aperocky 5y ago
    Youtube probably conceded that adblockers does it anyways for powerusers.
  - karolist 5y ago
    These services show ads in ways that delay you accessing the content you want, banner ads, while annoying do not have that property and are a harder sell
  - jedberg 5y ago
    reddit did it years before all of those.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    There are ads in YouTube premium? What is the point in it then?
    - sralbert 5y ago
      There are no ads with premium.
    - heartbreak 5y ago
      There are not ads in YT Premium. The comment was listing services that sell the ability to hide ads.
- giarc 5y ago
  Do power users click on ads though?
- ChrisArchitect 5y ago
  Power users use Tweetdeck, and there are no ads I'm just realizing
- CobrastanJorji 5y ago
  Google tried something like that called Google Contributor back in 2017. You could basically just put money in an account, and instead of advertisers buying ads for whatever site you were on, it just took that same money from you and gave it to that site. Honestly a pretty elegant system, but I can kind of picture why it wouldn't have worked out.
wbobeirne 5y ago
Was excited to be able to pay to kill ads, and was shocked that that isn't one of the "features". Ever since cutting cable, I refuse to pay for any service that still tried to monetize me further (looking at you, Hulu.) That's probably how they can hit the $3 price-point though, I'm sure targeted Twitter ads these days bring in a lot more than $3/user/mo.
- jolux 5y ago
  According to this, Facebook revenue per-user-per-year is about $30, so $2/mo (post-Apple cut) is probably not far off for Twitter: https://www.statista.com/statistics/234056/facebooks-average-advertising-revenue-per-user/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/234056/facebooks-average.... But of course, why replace that revenue when you could double it? edit: here's an ARPU estimate for Twitter in 2016, it was around $2/quarter: https://www.statista.com/statistics/430874/twitter-annualized-advertising-arpu/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/430874/twitter-annualize...
  - ijlx 5y ago
    I would guess that the subset of users willing/able to pay for something like this is more valuable to advertisers than the average twitter user. At this price point I wouldn't be surprised if they would lose money by offering no ads as part of the package.
  - username90 5y ago
    A majority of Facebook users live in third worlds countries though, they wont generate a lot of money no matter what you do.
  - giarc 5y ago
    That $30/year figure is likely averaged over the globe, therefore their North American stat is likely quite a bit higher. Given the quality of ads on twitter that I see, I suspect my value to them is much, much lower. Their ad network just seems terrible compared to Facebook so it's surprising they didn't offer a $10/month ad-free version.
  - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
adenozine 5y ago
That's a little unfair, it's a concept, not a public demo. There's apparently only a few people testing it so far. It might have been overlooked or just easier for some reason to inline the normal twitter timeline view, or whatever they call it, and there might not be a dedicated premium adfree view yet. Surely they'll reduce ads for the public when paid users en masse have access to this.
cvwright 5y ago
They're probably making more than $3 per user on the ads. IIRC Facebook makes somewhere in the neighborhood of $80/user per year.
- can16358p 5y ago
  Just out of curiosity: you are referring to Facebook Inc as a company, including Instagram, right? Not the Facebook platform itself.
  - cvwright 5y ago
    Hmm, I think you're right. Also, I'm probably thinking of their North American market. They probably make less in the rest of the world.
fossuser 5y ago
The only thing I want to pay for is ad removal. I’d pay $10/month for Twitter without ads in a second. I already pay for YouTube premium, and while I wish they removed tracking in addition to the ads - it’s still great.
blueblimp 5y ago
When I saw Twitter was launching a paid subscription then I figured it would probably be ad-free (like with YouTube Premium, Twitch Turbo, etc.). Odd that it isn't. It's a dealbreaker for me.

by Yaina 5y ago

CamelCaseName 5y ago

Does it ever make sense to sell the ability to turn off ads? I imagine the majority of people willing to pay for such an option are power users, the same group that likely generates the bulk of advertising revenues and lives in countries with high CPC.

MatekCopatek 5y ago
Well, Youtube Premium does it, so does Hulu, and I'm sure there's other examples.
- Aperocky 5y ago
  Youtube probably conceded that adblockers does it anyways for powerusers.
- karolist 5y ago
  These services show ads in ways that delay you accessing the content you want, banner ads, while annoying do not have that property and are a harder sell
- jedberg 5y ago
  reddit did it years before all of those.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  There are ads in YouTube premium? What is the point in it then?
  - sralbert 5y ago
    There are no ads with premium.
  - heartbreak 5y ago
    There are not ads in YT Premium. The comment was listing services that sell the ability to hide ads.
giarc 5y ago
Do power users click on ads though?
ChrisArchitect 5y ago
Power users use Tweetdeck, and there are no ads I'm just realizing
CobrastanJorji 5y ago
Google tried something like that called Google Contributor back in 2017. You could basically just put money in an account, and instead of advertisers buying ads for whatever site you were on, it just took that same money from you and gave it to that site. Honestly a pretty elegant system, but I can kind of picture why it wouldn't have worked out.

wbobeirne 5y ago

Was excited to be able to pay to kill ads, and was shocked that that isn't one of the "features". Ever since cutting cable, I refuse to pay for any service that still tried to monetize me further (looking at you, Hulu.) That's probably how they can hit the $3 price-point though, I'm sure targeted Twitter ads these days bring in a lot more than $3/user/mo.

jolux 5y ago
According to this, Facebook revenue per-user-per-year is about $30, so $2/mo (post-Apple cut) is probably not far off for Twitter: https://www.statista.com/statistics/234056/facebooks-average-advertising-revenue-per-user/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/234056/facebooks-average.... But of course, why replace that revenue when you could double it? edit: here's an ARPU estimate for Twitter in 2016, it was around $2/quarter: https://www.statista.com/statistics/430874/twitter-annualized-advertising-arpu/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/430874/twitter-annualize...
- ijlx 5y ago
  I would guess that the subset of users willing/able to pay for something like this is more valuable to advertisers than the average twitter user. At this price point I wouldn't be surprised if they would lose money by offering no ads as part of the package.
- username90 5y ago
  A majority of Facebook users live in third worlds countries though, they wont generate a lot of money no matter what you do.
- giarc 5y ago
  That $30/year figure is likely averaged over the globe, therefore their North American stat is likely quite a bit higher. Given the quality of ads on twitter that I see, I suspect my value to them is much, much lower. Their ad network just seems terrible compared to Facebook so it's surprising they didn't offer a $10/month ad-free version.
- 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

adenozine 5y ago

That's a little unfair, it's a concept, not a public demo. There's apparently only a few people testing it so far. It might have been overlooked or just easier for some reason to inline the normal twitter timeline view, or whatever they call it, and there might not be a dedicated premium adfree view yet. Surely they'll reduce ads for the public when paid users en masse have access to this.

cvwright 5y ago

They're probably making more than $3 per user on the ads. IIRC Facebook makes somewhere in the neighborhood of $80/user per year.

can16358p 5y ago
Just out of curiosity: you are referring to Facebook Inc as a company, including Instagram, right? Not the Facebook platform itself.
- cvwright 5y ago
  Hmm, I think you're right. Also, I'm probably thinking of their North American market. They probably make less in the rest of the world.

fossuser 5y ago

The only thing I want to pay for is ad removal. I’d pay $10/month for Twitter without ads in a second. I already pay for YouTube premium, and while I wish they removed tracking in addition to the ads - it’s still great.

blueblimp 5y ago

When I saw Twitter was launching a paid subscription then I figured it would probably be ad-free (like with YouTube Premium, Twitch Turbo, etc.). Odd that it isn't. It's a dealbreaker for me.