6 ms·

(and if you DO want me to sign up, do not mandate a telephone number; you don't need it, I don't want to give it to you)

bena 5y ago
I agree, but I do find this take funny considering the history of Twitter.
- amatecha 5y ago
  Right, I remember you used to be able to sign up for Twitter solely with a phone number (and post tweets via SMS, a feature which I used every so often). You can see that if you look at an old archive of the site: https://web.archive.org/web/20061203201128/http://twitter.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20061203201128/http://twitter.co... (heh, also gotta love that the site was so small they can just show some random recent tweets and users right on the homepage) This was in the days before legit smartphones so running an actual "twitter client" was out of the question. Of course that all quickly changed with the advent of smartphones like the iPhone.
segmondy 5y ago
- ComputerGuru 5y ago
  Twitter’s financials are public. They aren’t making any obvious money from having your phone. It’s more likely there to let them stop people from harvesting/selling accounts.
- eatsyourtacos 5y ago
  Hard to use that logic when there are a small monopoly of services out there.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  Yes. I may be in minority, but yes. Understanding that "Free" is the only way to grow a platform, once there, I'd happily pay $X/month for Facebook, Twitter, etc that's customizable to the format and amount of tracking that I want. That is completely unrealistic, of course, but that wasn't your question, so I can happily and honestly answer "Yes" :)
  - amatecha 5y ago
    there used to be such a service, App.net[0], which was basically "paid twitter". It was pretty awesome. Not only was there the App.net client which was an analogue to Twitter, devs could make other services which you could log into with your App.net identity, for example there was an excellent Instagram-like app "Favd"[1] that could post to Twitter, FB and App.net. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20130116194906/https://app.net/about/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130116194906/https://app.net/a... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140922104251/http://pic.favd.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20140922104251/http://pic.favd.n...
  - zeepzeep 5y ago
    > I may be in minority, but yes. Do you know what's the best thing about that? It's okay if only a part of the population pays for each service. If enough people have Twitter Blue to make Twitter profitable, and are enjoying the comments and type of content the tons of non-paying users are making, it's win-win. One person hast Twitter Blue, another one has Facebook Deluxe, and some others don't pay for online services at all. But these who don't pay are creating content people are willing to pay for. That's how free to play games work, so it's not unrealistic.
    - NikolaNovak 5y ago
      Exactly; I'm happy to be a "Whale" on a number of games and services :)
car_analogy 5y ago
Oh they don't - you can sign-up without one, and iirc, Twitter doesn't indicate anywhere that one is needed. But all new accounts just happen to exhibit suspicious activity and are blocked until submitting a phone number. This is all mere coincidence, and certainly not an effort by Twitter to conceal how much personal information they want for an account.

bena 5y ago

I agree, but I do find this take funny considering the history of Twitter.

amatecha 5y ago
Right, I remember you used to be able to sign up for Twitter solely with a phone number (and post tweets via SMS, a feature which I used every so often). You can see that if you look at an old archive of the site: https://web.archive.org/web/20061203201128/http://twitter.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20061203201128/http://twitter.co... (heh, also gotta love that the site was so small they can just show some random recent tweets and users right on the homepage) This was in the days before legit smartphones so running an actual "twitter client" was out of the question. Of course that all quickly changed with the advent of smartphones like the iPhone.

segmondy 5y ago

ComputerGuru 5y ago
Twitter’s financials are public. They aren’t making any obvious money from having your phone. It’s more likely there to let them stop people from harvesting/selling accounts.
eatsyourtacos 5y ago
Hard to use that logic when there are a small monopoly of services out there.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
Yes. I may be in minority, but yes. Understanding that "Free" is the only way to grow a platform, once there, I'd happily pay $X/month for Facebook, Twitter, etc that's customizable to the format and amount of tracking that I want. That is completely unrealistic, of course, but that wasn't your question, so I can happily and honestly answer "Yes" :)
- amatecha 5y ago
  there used to be such a service, App.net[0], which was basically "paid twitter". It was pretty awesome. Not only was there the App.net client which was an analogue to Twitter, devs could make other services which you could log into with your App.net identity, for example there was an excellent Instagram-like app "Favd"[1] that could post to Twitter, FB and App.net. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20130116194906/https://app.net/about/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130116194906/https://app.net/a... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140922104251/http://pic.favd.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20140922104251/http://pic.favd.n...
- zeepzeep 5y ago
  > I may be in minority, but yes. Do you know what's the best thing about that? It's okay if only a part of the population pays for each service. If enough people have Twitter Blue to make Twitter profitable, and are enjoying the comments and type of content the tons of non-paying users are making, it's win-win. One person hast Twitter Blue, another one has Facebook Deluxe, and some others don't pay for online services at all. But these who don't pay are creating content people are willing to pay for. That's how free to play games work, so it's not unrealistic.
  - NikolaNovak 5y ago
    Exactly; I'm happy to be a "Whale" on a number of games and services :)

car_analogy 5y ago

Oh they don't - you can sign-up without one, and iirc, Twitter doesn't indicate anywhere that one is needed. But all new accounts just happen to exhibit suspicious activity and are blocked until submitting a phone number. This is all mere coincidence, and certainly not an effort by Twitter to conceal how much personal information they want for an account.