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I'm likely to pay for it at that price. For reference, I have a bit more than 14K followers on Twitter. Why? Two reasons. 1) Funding social media through adve

I'm likely to pay for it at that price. For reference, I have a bit more than 14K followers on Twitter. Why? Two reasons. 1) Funding social media through advertising has led to dysfunctional outcomes like outrage being more visible than high-quality content. I’m in favor of alternative revenue streams, although they have to provide value, and removing ads doesn't count as providing value. 2) My Twitter account is part of my consulting business. Eight dollars a month isn't much to pay if it improves my visibility or perceived legitimacy. I'd be willing to try it for a year and see how it works out. FWIW, I wouldn't have been willing to try it at $20/mo.

dheera 4y ago
What does a blue check get you anyway that you can't just have with a blue check emoji?
- _djo_ 4y ago
  Currently? Protection against impersonation is the key benefit for most who have it. By most accounts the additional tools they provide in terms of filtering aren't that valuable. In Musk's proposal basically a slightly better Twitter Blue.
- jdlshore 4y ago
  From the linked thread: 1) Priority in replies, mentions & search, which is essential to defeat spam/scam 2) Ability to post long video & audio 3) Half as many ads I also expect the following: 4) Increase in perceived legitimacy #1 and #4 are valuable to me. #2 I don't care about at all, because my long-form content goes on my blog and YouTube. #3 is 'meh'--it'll be nice to have fewer ads, but my brain glazes right past them anyway.
  - lawgimenez 4y ago
    And fancy custom iOS icons for sure.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
greysphere 4y ago
By (2) it seems like the price should be f(#followers).
- swivelmaster 4y ago
  People can't control how many followers they have, so this would be gameable by encouraging people to follow competitors just to waste their money.
- dmix 4y ago
  (2) should be what you get in return. Pricing should be what customers care about, not what Twitter cares about. If you're going to be a luxury product then all of your prices and/or offering has to be luxury or exclusive. Disincentiving follower counts by how much VIP accounts costs doesn't make much sense. Unless you have some high end super VIP bracket that caps at 100-500k or whatever. Elon's idea of rewarding creators as a byproduct of checkmarks sounds better than arbitrarily gatekeeping the checkmark system through some VIP criteria (like follower counts or public influence). Everyone is a creator by default, creators should be rewarded after a certain level of contribution - always - but that's not the role of checkmarks (or the base level one at least).
elicash 4y ago
> Funding social media through advertising has led to dysfunctional outcomes > Eight dollars a month isn't much to pay if it improves my visibility What you're describing in that second quote is advertising. You are paying for additional reach, in this case you'd get those additional impressions via "priority" in replies, mentions & search. What they've done is dressed up advertising as a membership feature because it'll make people like you more likely to advertise.
- jdlshore 4y ago
  Although you’re technically correct, I think there’s a qualitative difference here. Traditional advertising is priced on number of impressions. As a result, publishers are incentivized to juice engagement numbers. Practically speaking, that means outrage-generating content and similar garbage. This sort of “advertising” is a class system, with one class of users getting some sort of visibility bump over a second class of users. The incentives are aligned with making sure the verified content is perceived to be high quality, so that being verified is a status symbol. You could argue that a system with literal second-class citizens is worse than the current one, and you might be right, but I’m interested to see how it turns out. Nothing is perfect—everything has tradeoffs—and the current engagement-driven approach is a dumpster fire.
  - elicash 4y ago
    I’m an advertiser and I think you understate how ad platforms incentivize quality content (via quality scores that affect price) and overstate how this twitter blue proposal would do so. Also you greatly simplify how current advertising works. It’s not anywhere as simple as you describe.
    - jdlshore 4y ago
      Again, although you’re technically correct, I don’t think it changes my overall point.
      - elicash 4y ago
ulfw 4y ago
Nobody finds you more legit as a consultant because you have a blue check box on Elon's twitter app. Come on now.

dheera 4y ago

What does a blue check get you anyway that you can't just have with a blue check emoji?

_djo_ 4y ago
Currently? Protection against impersonation is the key benefit for most who have it. By most accounts the additional tools they provide in terms of filtering aren't that valuable. In Musk's proposal basically a slightly better Twitter Blue.
jdlshore 4y ago
From the linked thread: 1) Priority in replies, mentions & search, which is essential to defeat spam/scam 2) Ability to post long video & audio 3) Half as many ads I also expect the following: 4) Increase in perceived legitimacy #1 and #4 are valuable to me. #2 I don't care about at all, because my long-form content goes on my blog and YouTube. #3 is 'meh'--it'll be nice to have fewer ads, but my brain glazes right past them anyway.
- lawgimenez 4y ago
  And fancy custom iOS icons for sure.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

greysphere 4y ago

By (2) it seems like the price should be f(#followers).

swivelmaster 4y ago
People can't control how many followers they have, so this would be gameable by encouraging people to follow competitors just to waste their money.
dmix 4y ago
(2) should be what you get in return. Pricing should be what customers care about, not what Twitter cares about. If you're going to be a luxury product then all of your prices and/or offering has to be luxury or exclusive. Disincentiving follower counts by how much VIP accounts costs doesn't make much sense. Unless you have some high end super VIP bracket that caps at 100-500k or whatever. Elon's idea of rewarding creators as a byproduct of checkmarks sounds better than arbitrarily gatekeeping the checkmark system through some VIP criteria (like follower counts or public influence). Everyone is a creator by default, creators should be rewarded after a certain level of contribution - always - but that's not the role of checkmarks (or the base level one at least).

elicash 4y ago

> Funding social media through advertising has led to dysfunctional outcomes > Eight dollars a month isn't much to pay if it improves my visibility What you're describing in that second quote is advertising. You are paying for additional reach, in this case you'd get those additional impressions via "priority" in replies, mentions & search. What they've done is dressed up advertising as a membership feature because it'll make people like you more likely to advertise.

jdlshore 4y ago
Although you’re technically correct, I think there’s a qualitative difference here. Traditional advertising is priced on number of impressions. As a result, publishers are incentivized to juice engagement numbers. Practically speaking, that means outrage-generating content and similar garbage. This sort of “advertising” is a class system, with one class of users getting some sort of visibility bump over a second class of users. The incentives are aligned with making sure the verified content is perceived to be high quality, so that being verified is a status symbol. You could argue that a system with literal second-class citizens is worse than the current one, and you might be right, but I’m interested to see how it turns out. Nothing is perfect—everything has tradeoffs—and the current engagement-driven approach is a dumpster fire.
- elicash 4y ago
  I’m an advertiser and I think you understate how ad platforms incentivize quality content (via quality scores that affect price) and overstate how this twitter blue proposal would do so. Also you greatly simplify how current advertising works. It’s not anywhere as simple as you describe.
  - jdlshore 4y ago
    Again, although you’re technically correct, I don’t think it changes my overall point.
    - elicash 4y ago

ulfw 4y ago

Nobody finds you more legit as a consultant because you have a blue check box on Elon's twitter app. Come on now.