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Apparently Twitter will experiment with any revenue model except 1) actually just letting people pay to get rid of ads + see content in chronological order with

by jzb 5y ago

Apparently Twitter will experiment with any revenue model except 1) actually just letting people pay to get rid of ads + see content in chronological order without other bullshit, or 2) allowing users to edit tweets which people have been begging for for years.

marcinzm 5y ago
>1) actually just letting people pay to get rid of ads + see content in chronological order without other bullshit It can't because the people most likely to pay are also the ones worth the most to advertisers. Thus you need to charge more to make up for it, thus selecting for even more valuable people, etc, etc. >2) allowing users to edit tweets which people have been begging for for years. Due to the high possibility for abuse either by users or people taking over their accounts this is unlikely unless it resets all metrics on the tweet. At which point you may as well make a new tweet. Same reason you can't edit the title of a reddit post.
- iainmerrick 5y ago
  Oh, come on, there are plenty of reasonable solutions to both of those, such as: 1) If you need to set the price high to avoid that effect, just set it high. 2) Add an “edited” tag (just like HN does). For replies that and retweets that came in before the edit, maybe have an easy way to show the original version. Or, 2b) Show the edited version literally as an edit, with the typos crossed out.
  - marcinzm 5y ago
    >1) If you need to set the price high to avoid that effect, just set it high. You missed my point, there is possibly no price high enough. The higher the price the more valuable the users who pay it are to advertisers. Thus the price needs to be even higher and endlessly up it goes. >2) Add an “edited” tag (just like HN does) HN does not allow the changing of headlines either except by admins. Arguably headlines are closer to tweets than comments.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - iainmerrick 5y ago
      The higher the price the more valuable the users who pay it are to advertisers. Thus the price needs to be even higher and endlessly up it goes. Well, the price is higher for an ever-smaller set of users! It’s a demand curve - in principle you can pick a point where cost $C x N users is worth more than the loss of advertising revenue from those users. Arguably headlines are closer to tweets than comments. I’d argue the opposite! As a compromise -- how about links on Twitter are similar to HN headlines?
  - caslon 5y ago
    HN does not have an edited tag and doesn't allow editing past a brief window (for both headlines and comments). Ones that are edited are invisibly edited: there's no notification that they have been, unless someone points it out. You are wrong and your idea is so awful that I struggle to think of an idea that could be more destructive to discussion quality, especially on a site that already has a low standard of discussion like twitter. I edited this comment multiple times. No edit tag.
    - iainmerrick 5y ago
      HN does not have an edited tag Huh, wow! Somehow I had the idea that it did. I might be mixing it up with some other forum, or the edit to add: tag that many people here add manually. and doesn't allow editing past a brief window Right, that’s precisely the kind of obvious balancing restriction I was alluding to, by mentioning HN at all. your idea is so awful that I struggle to think of an idea that could be more destructive to discussion quality I’m going to need a bit more justification for that one than “your example of existing usage was incorrect”. Care to expand? Why does HN allow edits at all? Edit to add(!): I’m glad I was able to fix an unbalanced *
      - LordAtlas 5y ago
        You're thinking of Facebook, which has an "edited" tag on comments on posts as well as a full edit history if you click on it. I think Twitter could allow a 60-120 second edit window without being ripe for abuse that an indefinite edit window would allow.
      - dlhavema 5y ago
        Slack does too, if that matters
- danschuller 5y ago
  I don't see why you couldn't keep all versions of a tweet to browse (and allow direct linking to) but just display the most recent with a "This tweet has been modified link" that displays the revisions.
felipeerias 5y ago
They’ve degraded the core experience so much that at this point they could charge users for the ability to stop their likes, follows or comments being randomly pushed to other people’s TL.
- solarkraft 5y ago
  That’s not the worst part. I actually get value out of that. The most outrageous thing is that it sends me non-disablable notifications for tweets people have posted. Sometimes tend over the course of a few days. Like there’s no other, UX-wise correct way for that. Holy fuck, how stupid. Makes me dread opening Twitter at all. Edit: Just opened the app. One smartphone page of only spam.
sellyme 5y ago
> see content in chronological order without other bullshit This is called "Lists" and has been a free feature of Twitter since 2009.
- jzb 5y ago
  1) Lists are kludgy and 2) the UI for adding people to lists rather than just following them is more of a PITA. As I said, though, literally any business model other than just letting people be paid users and see what they want to see without interference.
dgellow 5y ago
You can see your timeline chronologically: at the top right you have some weird icons that look like little stars, click on it and select a different sorting order.
- drcongo 5y ago
  It won't stay like that though. It magically switches back to "we hate you" mode after a small amount of time.
- jzb 5y ago
  It's not persistent and they also keep futzing with things like throwing "so-and-so liked this tweet" into the timeline. I just want to see what people I follow actually publish, not their likes or follows or whatever.
iamevn 5y ago
The issue with edits is the sort of situation where A tweets something B supports/likes so B retweets it, then A edits the tweet and puts something B would not want to boost in. What should happen to B's retweet? The best option I can think of for edits is to have the edit just delete the original and give you an input field with the text, attachments, and replied-to fields filled in already. (Maybe do something fancy and skip reuploading large media that doesn't get changed.) As far as likes/links/retweets go it's an entirely separate tweet. That or adding support for a reply to be flagged as having corrections and be promoted to the top of the reply list and somehow highlighted to bring attention to to.
- mattrick 5y ago
  Why not allow edits on tweets that haven't received any engagement (likes or replies) and have a low enough view count. Or even tweets that haven't been posted for very long. This would allow for edits to fix minor typos at the very least.
uuddlrlr 5y ago
Just proofread or follow-up; the amount of clutter and chaos that comes from edit functionality is not at all worth it.
leephillips 5y ago
You can already see content in chronological order without other bullshit, without paying: https://lee-phillips.org/howtotwitter/ https://lee-phillips.org/howtotwitter/

by jzb 5y ago

marcinzm 5y ago

>1) actually just letting people pay to get rid of ads + see content in chronological order without other bullshit It can't because the people most likely to pay are also the ones worth the most to advertisers. Thus you need to charge more to make up for it, thus selecting for even more valuable people, etc, etc. >2) allowing users to edit tweets which people have been begging for for years. Due to the high possibility for abuse either by users or people taking over their accounts this is unlikely unless it resets all metrics on the tweet. At which point you may as well make a new tweet. Same reason you can't edit the title of a reddit post.

iainmerrick 5y ago
Oh, come on, there are plenty of reasonable solutions to both of those, such as: 1) If you need to set the price high to avoid that effect, just set it high. 2) Add an “edited” tag (just like HN does). For replies that and retweets that came in before the edit, maybe have an easy way to show the original version. Or, 2b) Show the edited version literally as an edit, with the typos crossed out.
- marcinzm 5y ago
  >1) If you need to set the price high to avoid that effect, just set it high. You missed my point, there is possibly no price high enough. The higher the price the more valuable the users who pay it are to advertisers. Thus the price needs to be even higher and endlessly up it goes. >2) Add an “edited” tag (just like HN does) HN does not allow the changing of headlines either except by admins. Arguably headlines are closer to tweets than comments.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - iainmerrick 5y ago
    The higher the price the more valuable the users who pay it are to advertisers. Thus the price needs to be even higher and endlessly up it goes. Well, the price is higher for an ever-smaller set of users! It’s a demand curve - in principle you can pick a point where cost $C x N users is worth more than the loss of advertising revenue from those users. Arguably headlines are closer to tweets than comments. I’d argue the opposite! As a compromise -- how about links on Twitter are similar to HN headlines?
- caslon 5y ago
  HN does not have an edited tag and doesn't allow editing past a brief window (for both headlines and comments). Ones that are edited are invisibly edited: there's no notification that they have been, unless someone points it out. You are wrong and your idea is so awful that I struggle to think of an idea that could be more destructive to discussion quality, especially on a site that already has a low standard of discussion like twitter. I edited this comment multiple times. No edit tag.
  - iainmerrick 5y ago
    HN does not have an edited tag Huh, wow! Somehow I had the idea that it did. I might be mixing it up with some other forum, or the edit to add: tag that many people here add manually. and doesn't allow editing past a brief window Right, that’s precisely the kind of obvious balancing restriction I was alluding to, by mentioning HN at all. your idea is so awful that I struggle to think of an idea that could be more destructive to discussion quality I’m going to need a bit more justification for that one than “your example of existing usage was incorrect”. Care to expand? Why does HN allow edits at all? Edit to add(!): I’m glad I was able to fix an unbalanced *
    - LordAtlas 5y ago
      You're thinking of Facebook, which has an "edited" tag on comments on posts as well as a full edit history if you click on it. I think Twitter could allow a 60-120 second edit window without being ripe for abuse that an indefinite edit window would allow.
    - dlhavema 5y ago
      Slack does too, if that matters
danschuller 5y ago
I don't see why you couldn't keep all versions of a tweet to browse (and allow direct linking to) but just display the most recent with a "This tweet has been modified link" that displays the revisions.

felipeerias 5y ago

They’ve degraded the core experience so much that at this point they could charge users for the ability to stop their likes, follows or comments being randomly pushed to other people’s TL.

solarkraft 5y ago
That’s not the worst part. I actually get value out of that. The most outrageous thing is that it sends me non-disablable notifications for tweets people have posted. Sometimes tend over the course of a few days. Like there’s no other, UX-wise correct way for that. Holy fuck, how stupid. Makes me dread opening Twitter at all. Edit: Just opened the app. One smartphone page of only spam.

sellyme 5y ago

> see content in chronological order without other bullshit This is called "Lists" and has been a free feature of Twitter since 2009.

jzb 5y ago
1) Lists are kludgy and 2) the UI for adding people to lists rather than just following them is more of a PITA. As I said, though, literally any business model other than just letting people be paid users and see what they want to see without interference.

dgellow 5y ago

You can see your timeline chronologically: at the top right you have some weird icons that look like little stars, click on it and select a different sorting order.

drcongo 5y ago
It won't stay like that though. It magically switches back to "we hate you" mode after a small amount of time.
jzb 5y ago
It's not persistent and they also keep futzing with things like throwing "so-and-so liked this tweet" into the timeline. I just want to see what people I follow actually publish, not their likes or follows or whatever.

iamevn 5y ago

The issue with edits is the sort of situation where A tweets something B supports/likes so B retweets it, then A edits the tweet and puts something B would not want to boost in. What should happen to B's retweet? The best option I can think of for edits is to have the edit just delete the original and give you an input field with the text, attachments, and replied-to fields filled in already. (Maybe do something fancy and skip reuploading large media that doesn't get changed.) As far as likes/links/retweets go it's an entirely separate tweet. That or adding support for a reply to be flagged as having corrections and be promoted to the top of the reply list and somehow highlighted to bring attention to to.

mattrick 5y ago
Why not allow edits on tweets that haven't received any engagement (likes or replies) and have a low enough view count. Or even tweets that haven't been posted for very long. This would allow for edits to fix minor typos at the very least.

uuddlrlr 5y ago

Just proofread or follow-up; the amount of clutter and chaos that comes from edit functionality is not at all worth it.

leephillips 5y ago

You can already see content in chronological order without other bullshit, without paying: https://lee-phillips.org/howtotwitter/ https://lee-phillips.org/howtotwitter/