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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

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.
- kooshball 5y ago
  you should really get these kind of data straight from the source when you can. stastica is sometimes useful for some hard to get metrics. this is not one. https://investor.fb.com/investor-events/event-details/2021/Facebook-Q1-2021-Earnings-/default.aspx https://investor.fb.com/investor-events/event-details/2021/F... this is their q1 earnings presentation https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/FB-Earnings-Presentation-Q1-2021.pdf https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/FB... US/CA arpu is $48.03 for just q1 (just 3 month not for the year). Global arpu is $9.27. there's no way $3/mo makes any sense.
PoignardAzur 5y ago
There's also the fact that users willing to pay to cut adds are probably a very large chunk of Twitter's ad revenue.
Laremere 5y ago
That math is pretty easy to make a ballpark guess. Using stats from: https://backlinko.com/twitter-users https://backlinko.com/twitter-users $3.72 billion (2020 revenue) / 12 = $310 million average monthly revenue $310 million / 353.1 million (monthly active users) = $0.88 per user per month Narrowing down to the monetizable daily active users, the users probably make up the vast majority of monetization: $310 million / 152 million = $2.03 per user per month Given that those users who are likely to pay for this service are probably even more skewed than that, yeah $3/month seems low. You're also somewhat selecting for users who have disposable income, which can't be great for ad value.
- sennight 5y ago
  > You're also somewhat selecting for users who have disposable income, which can't be great for ad value. Many years ago I worked for a company that had tens of millions of US subscribers, my job involved modeling their behavior in order to allocate resources at least a week in advance. The law of large numbers is pretty amazing to see play out in front of you like that, where you can clearly see the bright lines between your market segments - fundamentally different kinds of people. I have a feeling that there is only one kind of person who would pay for twitter, which will very likely end up as a flag in a marketing dataset that certain companies would find well worth whatever twitter charges them (or their data-broker). Not unlike Volkswagen, on the eve of a big sales push for beetles, wanting a list of everyone who regularly buys peanut butter and cat litter.
- jolux 5y ago
  Isn’t advertising to people with disposable income more desirable?
  - bogwog 5y ago
    Yeah, which is why serving ads only to people who don't have disposable income (so don't pay for this subscription) makes the ads less valuable. But that doesn't sound right to me. Not all products and services are targeted at people with disposable income. I think the truth is just that Twitter is trying to have their cake and eat it too. Why cut off advertising and data harvesting if people are willing to pay you just to change some colors and the app icon?
fossuser 5y ago
Hulu does have an ad free tier now just in case you weren’t aware.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Hulu does have an ad free tier now just in case you weren’t aware Well, it has a tier called (No Ads)* However, the * is there because it still has ads on some shows.

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.
kooshball 5y ago
you should really get these kind of data straight from the source when you can. stastica is sometimes useful for some hard to get metrics. this is not one. https://investor.fb.com/investor-events/event-details/2021/Facebook-Q1-2021-Earnings-/default.aspx https://investor.fb.com/investor-events/event-details/2021/F... this is their q1 earnings presentation https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/FB-Earnings-Presentation-Q1-2021.pdf https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/FB... US/CA arpu is $48.03 for just q1 (just 3 month not for the year). Global arpu is $9.27. there's no way $3/mo makes any sense.

PoignardAzur 5y ago

There's also the fact that users willing to pay to cut adds are probably a very large chunk of Twitter's ad revenue.

Laremere 5y ago

That math is pretty easy to make a ballpark guess. Using stats from: https://backlinko.com/twitter-users https://backlinko.com/twitter-users $3.72 billion (2020 revenue) / 12 = $310 million average monthly revenue $310 million / 353.1 million (monthly active users) = $0.88 per user per month Narrowing down to the monetizable daily active users, the users probably make up the vast majority of monetization: $310 million / 152 million = $2.03 per user per month Given that those users who are likely to pay for this service are probably even more skewed than that, yeah $3/month seems low. You're also somewhat selecting for users who have disposable income, which can't be great for ad value.

sennight 5y ago
> You're also somewhat selecting for users who have disposable income, which can't be great for ad value. Many years ago I worked for a company that had tens of millions of US subscribers, my job involved modeling their behavior in order to allocate resources at least a week in advance. The law of large numbers is pretty amazing to see play out in front of you like that, where you can clearly see the bright lines between your market segments - fundamentally different kinds of people. I have a feeling that there is only one kind of person who would pay for twitter, which will very likely end up as a flag in a marketing dataset that certain companies would find well worth whatever twitter charges them (or their data-broker). Not unlike Volkswagen, on the eve of a big sales push for beetles, wanting a list of everyone who regularly buys peanut butter and cat litter.
jolux 5y ago
Isn’t advertising to people with disposable income more desirable?
- bogwog 5y ago
  Yeah, which is why serving ads only to people who don't have disposable income (so don't pay for this subscription) makes the ads less valuable. But that doesn't sound right to me. Not all products and services are targeted at people with disposable income. I think the truth is just that Twitter is trying to have their cake and eat it too. Why cut off advertising and data harvesting if people are willing to pay you just to change some colors and the app icon?

fossuser 5y ago

Hulu does have an ad free tier now just in case you weren’t aware.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> Hulu does have an ad free tier now just in case you weren’t aware Well, it has a tier called (No Ads)* However, the * is there because it still has ads on some shows.