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Although you’re technically correct, I think there’s a qualitative difference here. Traditional advertising is priced on number of impressions. As a result, pub

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
    If you’re evaluating value, it’s helpful to think about it in those crude terms. If you’re likely to get, say, 4-5 new followers a month from the increased impressions then I think this is good value as an ad product. Part of your point, not the main one admittedly, was grappling with whether to sign up, aka the value here. I understand you were mostly making an incentives point and there I think we just disagree.
    - jdlshore 4y ago
      In terms of value, I think it's going to be more about avoiding anti-value—specifically, I expect that accounts lacking the checkmark will be seen as spam, scams, or bit players. Here's what I expect to happen: 1) First, Twitter introduces paid verification. They cut back on their content moderation efforts on unverified accounts, but they exercise more control of spam and scams on verified accounts, including permabans (which are easier to enforce, due to better knowledge of the people behind the accounts—a credit card number, at the very least). 2) Next, they introduce an option to hide all non-verified tweets, other than from people you follow. People will use it because non-verified tweets have a much higher proportion of spam and scams. 3) At this point, they've successfully price discriminated between professional content creators (such as myself) and consumers / casual creators. I expect additional price discrimination to follow, such as charging for API access in order to target people using tools such as HootSuite to manage large fanbases. All of this is predicated on people adopting #1, which is why it's important for Musk to find the right price point. It looks like he's just spraying out ideas, but I think he's doing price research.
      - elicash 4y ago
        This is all speculation about what they could announce -- even most of the items in (1). You could always re-evaluate if these things come to pass. Once this initial plan rolls out, whether the check itself continues to hold value once it's open to anybody with $$$ depends on how users in the network use it. That's why I prefer to think in terms of the specific reach/advertising question. But we'll see! My own speculation is that they lean more into trying to convince ordinary users (or content creators like you) to get more into the advertising game to replace some brands that may leave. Think of dating apps and features like Super Likes, Boosts, etc. Tinder and others figured out how to get money out of regular folks without a traditional ads interface. If I were them, I'd hire folks from Match Group. Frankly, I'd rather see an ad for a random content creator than for some of the weird brands that advertise to me. Right now the top "Who to follow" for me is Lamps Plus, "the nation's largest lighting retailer." As you could imagine, I'm not interested. Instead, they could give everyone a free 30-min account boost and give their premium Blue members four or five more a month.

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
  If you’re evaluating value, it’s helpful to think about it in those crude terms. If you’re likely to get, say, 4-5 new followers a month from the increased impressions then I think this is good value as an ad product. Part of your point, not the main one admittedly, was grappling with whether to sign up, aka the value here. I understand you were mostly making an incentives point and there I think we just disagree.
  - jdlshore 4y ago
    In terms of value, I think it's going to be more about avoiding anti-value—specifically, I expect that accounts lacking the checkmark will be seen as spam, scams, or bit players. Here's what I expect to happen: 1) First, Twitter introduces paid verification. They cut back on their content moderation efforts on unverified accounts, but they exercise more control of spam and scams on verified accounts, including permabans (which are easier to enforce, due to better knowledge of the people behind the accounts—a credit card number, at the very least). 2) Next, they introduce an option to hide all non-verified tweets, other than from people you follow. People will use it because non-verified tweets have a much higher proportion of spam and scams. 3) At this point, they've successfully price discriminated between professional content creators (such as myself) and consumers / casual creators. I expect additional price discrimination to follow, such as charging for API access in order to target people using tools such as HootSuite to manage large fanbases. All of this is predicated on people adopting #1, which is why it's important for Musk to find the right price point. It looks like he's just spraying out ideas, but I think he's doing price research.
    - elicash 4y ago
      This is all speculation about what they could announce -- even most of the items in (1). You could always re-evaluate if these things come to pass. Once this initial plan rolls out, whether the check itself continues to hold value once it's open to anybody with $$$ depends on how users in the network use it. That's why I prefer to think in terms of the specific reach/advertising question. But we'll see! My own speculation is that they lean more into trying to convince ordinary users (or content creators like you) to get more into the advertising game to replace some brands that may leave. Think of dating apps and features like Super Likes, Boosts, etc. Tinder and others figured out how to get money out of regular folks without a traditional ads interface. If I were them, I'd hire folks from Match Group. Frankly, I'd rather see an ad for a random content creator than for some of the weird brands that advertise to me. Right now the top "Who to follow" for me is Lamps Plus, "the nation's largest lighting retailer." As you could imagine, I'm not interested. Instead, they could give everyone a free 30-min account boost and give their premium Blue members four or five more a month.