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...ads, which is its primary source of revenue? That is what should change. The largest twit accounts, whether they use API or not, should be charged directly

...ads, which is its primary source of revenue? That is what should change. The largest twit accounts, whether they use API or not, should be charged directly by twitter for the value of reaching their many followers. Twitter the firm is infamously bad at improving anything, but this would be a way of recruiting a variety of capable parties into important efforts like fighting bots, spam, harassment, etc. Also there would be lots of money. This was obvious ten years ago.

dragonwriter 4y ago
> > ..ads, which is its primary source of revenue? > The largest twit accounts, whether they use API or not, should be charged directly by twitter for the value of reaching their many followers Paid reach is still ads, and narrowing free organic reach so that only the ads people are willing to pay for broad reach for have broad seeming-organic reach drops perceived content quality for consumers directly and reduces the perceived upside for the people creating and developing reach for organic content, getting them to put less effort in on your platform, further reducing consumer-perceived content quality.
- jessaustin 4y ago
  Tweets by e.g. Kim Kardashian extolling the virtues of particular beauty products are certainly advertisements, but they function differently and they aren't received as such by many of her followers. AFAICT Kardashian isn't really paying twitter for these tweets? That seems like an ongoing error on twitter's behalf. Granted, insta posts are probably more valuable for Kardashian, but there are lots of other parties who would also pay twitter for the privilege of tweeting.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > but there are lots of other parties who would also pay twitter for the privilege of tweeting. In the short term, yes. But when you make paying the only way to get significant reach, you reduxe the quantity of presented-as-organic content that feels organic rather than like ads, which both directly removes the perception advantage of pay-for-“organic”-reach vs. pay-for-adds and also makes the whole platform less attractive to consumers, costing eyeballs, and making it harder to sell either traditional ads or ads in the form of paid “organic” reach. Organic content that reachers passive/relatively inactive consumers is where your audience comes from. Make people pay to supply that, and you lose the audience you are selling to them and to traditional advertisers.
    - jessaustin 4y ago
      This argument feels theoretical. Twitter is not just an ad network. It offers unique values to its users. It is already conveying lots of promotional crap from big users to their followers, which doesn't have to change. Both sides of that transaction choose to take part in it. No normal ad network can deliver that value. If twitter starts charging the followers, sure, that will be a big mistake. I'm not suggesting that. Twitter should start charging the followed, only a little at first, on a sliding scale. They should try different pricing policies, for different users, and should keep adjusting until they have extracted a great deal of money from those twitter users with the most followers. It could be that some highly-followed users don't themselves see much value from their own tweets, so they won't want to pay. Twitter doesn't need those users; they're wasting resources. You may be worried about chasing away small users who will grow into big users, but small users won't be charged. By the time they're big, they will value the relationships they've built with their followers. A generic social media firm couldn't do this, but twitter is in a unique position.
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        > This argument feels theoretical. So does your argument. > Twitter is not just an ad network. It offers unique values to its users. Yes, it does, and that unique value is noncommercial organic content, which charging for organic reach undercuts. > If twitter starts charging the followers, sure, that will be a big mistake. I'm not suggesting that. No, you are suggesting something just as bad: charging people for exactly what gives the followers a reason to be there. > If twitter starts charging the followers, sure, that will be a big mistake. I'm not suggesting that. They are producing and providing Twitter with content which people are coming to Twitter to consume. That’s not “wasting resources”, that’s what enables Twitter to sell space to advertisers. > By the time they're big, they will value the relationships they've built with their followers. By the time they are even moderate-sized, they’ll be on multiple social platforms, be using each of them (among other things) to inform their followers of the others, and the kind of content they are distributing on them (especially as it changes), and will be, themselves, cobtinuously reevaluating the cost/benefit of each platform for particular content and adjusting their social media strategy. Facebook uses this strategy, and as they dialed it up, big accounts did direct followers to other platforms to get reliable access to what they were producing. > A generic social media firm couldn't do this, but twitter is in a unique position. How? Literally everything you’ve said applies to any large social media platform the same way as it applies to Twitter.
nephanth 4y ago
Wait you mean those "checkmarks" are free?
- jessaustin 4y ago
  I know, right? It seems so dumb that it's hard to believe. They're free to the right sort of people: Applicants need to be notable in fields such as government, entertainment, sports or political activism, and they need to abide by Twitter's rules including a ban on the glorification of violence. [0] Which probably means one can get a checkmark if one pays the right PR firm, who kick back to the right twitter middle manager, but twitter shareholders don't get a cut. Twitter has completely ignored an obvious source of revenue for its entire existence. [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/twitter-verification-back-get-blue-check-mark-rcna980 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/twitter-verificati...

dragonwriter 4y ago

> > ..ads, which is its primary source of revenue? > The largest twit accounts, whether they use API or not, should be charged directly by twitter for the value of reaching their many followers Paid reach is still ads, and narrowing free organic reach so that only the ads people are willing to pay for broad reach for have broad seeming-organic reach drops perceived content quality for consumers directly and reduces the perceived upside for the people creating and developing reach for organic content, getting them to put less effort in on your platform, further reducing consumer-perceived content quality.

jessaustin 4y ago
Tweets by e.g. Kim Kardashian extolling the virtues of particular beauty products are certainly advertisements, but they function differently and they aren't received as such by many of her followers. AFAICT Kardashian isn't really paying twitter for these tweets? That seems like an ongoing error on twitter's behalf. Granted, insta posts are probably more valuable for Kardashian, but there are lots of other parties who would also pay twitter for the privilege of tweeting.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > but there are lots of other parties who would also pay twitter for the privilege of tweeting. In the short term, yes. But when you make paying the only way to get significant reach, you reduxe the quantity of presented-as-organic content that feels organic rather than like ads, which both directly removes the perception advantage of pay-for-“organic”-reach vs. pay-for-adds and also makes the whole platform less attractive to consumers, costing eyeballs, and making it harder to sell either traditional ads or ads in the form of paid “organic” reach. Organic content that reachers passive/relatively inactive consumers is where your audience comes from. Make people pay to supply that, and you lose the audience you are selling to them and to traditional advertisers.
  - jessaustin 4y ago
    This argument feels theoretical. Twitter is not just an ad network. It offers unique values to its users. It is already conveying lots of promotional crap from big users to their followers, which doesn't have to change. Both sides of that transaction choose to take part in it. No normal ad network can deliver that value. If twitter starts charging the followers, sure, that will be a big mistake. I'm not suggesting that. Twitter should start charging the followed, only a little at first, on a sliding scale. They should try different pricing policies, for different users, and should keep adjusting until they have extracted a great deal of money from those twitter users with the most followers. It could be that some highly-followed users don't themselves see much value from their own tweets, so they won't want to pay. Twitter doesn't need those users; they're wasting resources. You may be worried about chasing away small users who will grow into big users, but small users won't be charged. By the time they're big, they will value the relationships they've built with their followers. A generic social media firm couldn't do this, but twitter is in a unique position.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > This argument feels theoretical. So does your argument. > Twitter is not just an ad network. It offers unique values to its users. Yes, it does, and that unique value is noncommercial organic content, which charging for organic reach undercuts. > If twitter starts charging the followers, sure, that will be a big mistake. I'm not suggesting that. No, you are suggesting something just as bad: charging people for exactly what gives the followers a reason to be there. > If twitter starts charging the followers, sure, that will be a big mistake. I'm not suggesting that. They are producing and providing Twitter with content which people are coming to Twitter to consume. That’s not “wasting resources”, that’s what enables Twitter to sell space to advertisers. > By the time they're big, they will value the relationships they've built with their followers. By the time they are even moderate-sized, they’ll be on multiple social platforms, be using each of them (among other things) to inform their followers of the others, and the kind of content they are distributing on them (especially as it changes), and will be, themselves, cobtinuously reevaluating the cost/benefit of each platform for particular content and adjusting their social media strategy. Facebook uses this strategy, and as they dialed it up, big accounts did direct followers to other platforms to get reliable access to what they were producing. > A generic social media firm couldn't do this, but twitter is in a unique position. How? Literally everything you’ve said applies to any large social media platform the same way as it applies to Twitter.

nephanth 4y ago

Wait you mean those "checkmarks" are free?

jessaustin 4y ago
I know, right? It seems so dumb that it's hard to believe. They're free to the right sort of people: Applicants need to be notable in fields such as government, entertainment, sports or political activism, and they need to abide by Twitter's rules including a ban on the glorification of violence. [0] Which probably means one can get a checkmark if one pays the right PR firm, who kick back to the right twitter middle manager, but twitter shareholders don't get a cut. Twitter has completely ignored an obvious source of revenue for its entire existence. [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/twitter-verification-back-get-blue-check-mark-rcna980 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/twitter-verificati...