7 ms·

Twitter limits unverified accounts to reading 600 posts/day

157 points by madars 3y ago

dang 3y ago
Comments moved to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36552324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36552324. Normally we wouldn't do that, since this has the original source and was posted earlier, but it seems to be paywalled without a workaround and that's where we draw the line (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989).
- madars 3y ago
  FWIW, both are exactly the same in terms of work-arounds: one had the tweet copied in the comments (just like archive.is links customary for newspapers), other in text/screenshot.
jljljl 3y ago
This seems like death for an ad supported model on Twitter. Why would you buy ads on a social network that deliberately restricts the number of posts (and thus ads) that a user can view?
- TheChaplain 3y ago
  My (cynical) guess would be that once you pass 600 posts, all you see is ads...
  - lapcat 3y ago
    You don't have to guess. It's already happening. There's a rate limit error, and no tweets.
  - wildpeaks 3y ago
    Even before 600 given "filter:follows" search used to provide a more accurate timeline than the Following tab, and is now half full of random tweets that have nothing to do with the accounts I follow.
- CreepGin 3y ago
  Can't speak for the big advertisers, but as a small business owner, I'm more likely to spend ad money on platforms that take an active stance against bots. In general, advertisers (should) care about impressions by unique users, not total number of views. I'm not sure about requiring an account to view contents though. That to me will just kill total usage across the board.
  - jljljl 3y ago
    The problem is this will reduce impressions by unique users as well. Once a user hits the daily tweet limit (easy to do if you scroll and view a few viral threads), they can't view any more ads for the day. A few viral or high engagement threads could significantly reduce your audience for 24 hours. Additionally, if Twitter CTR is low, then you need a _lot_ of unique users to actually generate conversions. Low CTR + Low impressions reduces the value of the ad.
    - logifail 3y ago
      > if Twitter CTR is low, then you need a _lot_ of unique users to actually generate conversions You don't want to on a platform that has loads of unique "users" and impressions if most of those users are bots, though. Perhaps quality is actually better than quantity?
      - jljljl 3y ago
        Pre-Elon the bot count was something like 5% of active users, meaning a broad approach like this will affect significantly more real users than bots. There are probably more fine tuned ways to reduce bots that don’t degrade the experience for your biggest users.
        logifail 3y ago
        > Pre-Elon the bot count was something like 5% of active users Is there a reliable source for that figure? Also, are we talking about 5% of accounts (active accounts/total accounts?) or 5% of pageviews or some other metric? I'm struggling to see any incentive for platforms to be honest about how many bots they get.
- 112233 3y ago
  But is that not exactly how Instagram works already?
  - jljljl 3y ago
    Instagram requires a login to view most posts, but it doesn’t rate limit it’s most active users.
    - 112233 3y ago
      It absolutely does rate limit logged in users. try scrolling any view (tag, explore) - you will hit a wall with a cooldown in hours to days. Not a rate limit, a full-on "not available"
- SnorkelTan 3y ago
  One reason I could think of is that real humans only read a certain number of tweets per day. Showing ads to users that "read" large numbers is showing ads to robots which, sadly, do not convert very well.
  - dgroshev 3y ago
    Current rate limit is about 20 minutes of use for me. Remember that it loads a couple dozen replies at a time if you click on a tweet, so 600 tweets is really not much.
    - jljljl 3y ago
      Yeah, this basically restricts users to viewing a handful of popular threads per day.
      - hparadiz 3y ago
        600 posts is about 10 minutes of browsing for me. It seems to be counting replies in large threads to the limit. So even if you make a post with a premium account your content won't be read by the vast majority of your followers.
    - PascLeRasc 3y ago
      It's like how scams put in typos on purpose to save effort. If I was an advertiser I'd really want to target people who donate $8 a month to Twitter.
- PragmaticPulp 3y ago
  Because the value of accounts that browse extreme numbers of posts per day is near zero to advertisers. Someone who has seen thousands of ads per day for years on end is basically immune to ads (or has blocked them, or is a bot) One of the hard things to grok as an engineer or power user is that we are not the target audience for ad-supported services most of the time. How many people in this thread have aggressively blocked ads everywhere and are confused about why ad-supported services aren’t catering to people like themselves?
  - jljljl 3y ago
    A few thoughts: 1. I'm not sure that an account that heavily browses twitter is zero value to advertisers. If anything, those are more engaged users with Twitter, _and_ Twitter should have more data and thus better targeting for that user. 2. The marginal efficiency of not showing an ad to a saturated user is probably offset by the reduced potential audience for your ad. Once you've seen 600 tweets, you can't use Twitter or view any more ads. That can shrink the daily audience significantly. 3. Users now need an account to view _any_ tweets. This further reduces the reach/audience for Twitter ads. If Twitter ads already have low CTR or referrals, and now their potential reach is cut, then they have no value. I have blocked ads most places, but I use Twitter in ad-supported mode + receive ads through the app. I'm a good example of a user they'd be advertising to, and now I can't use it.
QuercusMax 3y ago
I assume they're hoping that people will start paying $8 for that stupid blue check. Never gonna happen.
SirMaster 3y ago
Probably a good thing. People should use less social media.
- ashwagary 3y ago
  Elon paid $40 billion to cure Twitter addiction. It worked on me.
nerdix 3y ago
Sounds like some folks were finding ways around the new API rules/pricing and Elon decided to put an end to that with a machete instead of a scalpel.
ryan-allen 3y ago
I tried to hit the 600 post limit by scrolling through my feed quickly, after about 2.5 minutes the tweets I was being shown were mostly the same ones but on a loop. I kept scrolling for another 3 minutes and yeah, it's like the last 100 odd tweets shown over and over and over. Which honestly is an ironic metaphor for the platform as a whole.
CietyGoblin 3y ago
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l8dzqvpLyA-l0955IlBRLf5SoVye9ja-LtdDHQQ8h30/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l8dzqvpLyA-l0955IlBRLf5S...

157 points by madars 3y ago

dang 3y ago

Comments moved to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36552324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36552324. Normally we wouldn't do that, since this has the original source and was posted earlier, but it seems to be paywalled without a workaround and that's where we draw the line (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989).

madars 3y ago
FWIW, both are exactly the same in terms of work-arounds: one had the tweet copied in the comments (just like archive.is links customary for newspapers), other in text/screenshot.

jljljl 3y ago

This seems like death for an ad supported model on Twitter. Why would you buy ads on a social network that deliberately restricts the number of posts (and thus ads) that a user can view?

TheChaplain 3y ago
My (cynical) guess would be that once you pass 600 posts, all you see is ads...
- lapcat 3y ago
  You don't have to guess. It's already happening. There's a rate limit error, and no tweets.
- wildpeaks 3y ago
  Even before 600 given "filter:follows" search used to provide a more accurate timeline than the Following tab, and is now half full of random tweets that have nothing to do with the accounts I follow.
CreepGin 3y ago
Can't speak for the big advertisers, but as a small business owner, I'm more likely to spend ad money on platforms that take an active stance against bots. In general, advertisers (should) care about impressions by unique users, not total number of views. I'm not sure about requiring an account to view contents though. That to me will just kill total usage across the board.
- jljljl 3y ago
  The problem is this will reduce impressions by unique users as well. Once a user hits the daily tweet limit (easy to do if you scroll and view a few viral threads), they can't view any more ads for the day. A few viral or high engagement threads could significantly reduce your audience for 24 hours. Additionally, if Twitter CTR is low, then you need a _lot_ of unique users to actually generate conversions. Low CTR + Low impressions reduces the value of the ad.
  - logifail 3y ago
    > if Twitter CTR is low, then you need a _lot_ of unique users to actually generate conversions You don't want to on a platform that has loads of unique "users" and impressions if most of those users are bots, though. Perhaps quality is actually better than quantity?
    - jljljl 3y ago
      Pre-Elon the bot count was something like 5% of active users, meaning a broad approach like this will affect significantly more real users than bots. There are probably more fine tuned ways to reduce bots that don’t degrade the experience for your biggest users.
      - logifail 3y ago
        > Pre-Elon the bot count was something like 5% of active users Is there a reliable source for that figure? Also, are we talking about 5% of accounts (active accounts/total accounts?) or 5% of pageviews or some other metric? I'm struggling to see any incentive for platforms to be honest about how many bots they get.
112233 3y ago
But is that not exactly how Instagram works already?
- jljljl 3y ago
  Instagram requires a login to view most posts, but it doesn’t rate limit it’s most active users.
  - 112233 3y ago
    It absolutely does rate limit logged in users. try scrolling any view (tag, explore) - you will hit a wall with a cooldown in hours to days. Not a rate limit, a full-on "not available"
SnorkelTan 3y ago
One reason I could think of is that real humans only read a certain number of tweets per day. Showing ads to users that "read" large numbers is showing ads to robots which, sadly, do not convert very well.
- dgroshev 3y ago
  Current rate limit is about 20 minutes of use for me. Remember that it loads a couple dozen replies at a time if you click on a tweet, so 600 tweets is really not much.
  - jljljl 3y ago
    Yeah, this basically restricts users to viewing a handful of popular threads per day.
    - hparadiz 3y ago
      600 posts is about 10 minutes of browsing for me. It seems to be counting replies in large threads to the limit. So even if you make a post with a premium account your content won't be read by the vast majority of your followers.
  - PascLeRasc 3y ago
    It's like how scams put in typos on purpose to save effort. If I was an advertiser I'd really want to target people who donate $8 a month to Twitter.
PragmaticPulp 3y ago
Because the value of accounts that browse extreme numbers of posts per day is near zero to advertisers. Someone who has seen thousands of ads per day for years on end is basically immune to ads (or has blocked them, or is a bot) One of the hard things to grok as an engineer or power user is that we are not the target audience for ad-supported services most of the time. How many people in this thread have aggressively blocked ads everywhere and are confused about why ad-supported services aren’t catering to people like themselves?
- jljljl 3y ago
  A few thoughts: 1. I'm not sure that an account that heavily browses twitter is zero value to advertisers. If anything, those are more engaged users with Twitter, _and_ Twitter should have more data and thus better targeting for that user. 2. The marginal efficiency of not showing an ad to a saturated user is probably offset by the reduced potential audience for your ad. Once you've seen 600 tweets, you can't use Twitter or view any more ads. That can shrink the daily audience significantly. 3. Users now need an account to view _any_ tweets. This further reduces the reach/audience for Twitter ads. If Twitter ads already have low CTR or referrals, and now their potential reach is cut, then they have no value. I have blocked ads most places, but I use Twitter in ad-supported mode + receive ads through the app. I'm a good example of a user they'd be advertising to, and now I can't use it.

QuercusMax 3y ago

I assume they're hoping that people will start paying $8 for that stupid blue check. Never gonna happen.

SirMaster 3y ago

Probably a good thing. People should use less social media.

ashwagary 3y ago
Elon paid $40 billion to cure Twitter addiction. It worked on me.

nerdix 3y ago

Sounds like some folks were finding ways around the new API rules/pricing and Elon decided to put an end to that with a machete instead of a scalpel.

ryan-allen 3y ago

I tried to hit the 600 post limit by scrolling through my feed quickly, after about 2.5 minutes the tweets I was being shown were mostly the same ones but on a loop. I kept scrolling for another 3 minutes and yeah, it's like the last 100 odd tweets shown over and over and over. Which honestly is an ironic metaphor for the platform as a whole.

CietyGoblin 3y ago

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l8dzqvpLyA-l0955IlBRLf5SoVye9ja-LtdDHQQ8h30/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l8dzqvpLyA-l0955IlBRLf5S...