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I disagree that charging for usage is guaranteed to kill Twitter. Charging is a non-starter for a newcomer due to the chicken & egg problem (nobody would pay f

I disagree that charging for usage is guaranteed to kill Twitter. Charging is a non-starter for a newcomer due to the chicken & egg problem (nobody would pay for a platform with no users, thus it never gains any users), but it's not clear what will happen if an established platform with significant influence starts charging. It's worth a shot. It could very well be that charging a reasonable amount for access ends up being sustainable and actually improves the platform, both in terms of fighting against unauthorized spam (bots, etc) but also "authorized" spam aka ads and other dark patterns since user-hostile features no longer make sense if it's those same users who now pay for it. When it comes to monetizing social media without ads, one solution could be to get businesses/commercial entities to subsidize everyone else - using the network for personal use is free but no commercial content is allowed; for that a paid "business" account is required which in turn subsidizes free users.

rglullis 3y ago
I'm totally on board with the idea for them to try it. At the very least, it would be some validation to those that kept complaining about "Social Dilemma" stuff and it would show that you can have a viable business if your network focuses more on quality than quantity. The only thing that baffles me is that it seems that people do not want to pay for the service of social media. People don't mind paying their phone or water bills, but for some strange reason using an internet service that requires an infinite amount of bandwidth and storage (not to mention human effort in moderation and feature development) should either be free or have some other ulterior motivation to justify its price tag.
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  It's not clear that people do not want to pay for it - none of the major social media network people want to be on have ever offered a paid option that would disable ads/dark patterns or add valuable features. The very few social networks that may have tried this were too small to matter even as free services, let alone paid, so no surprise it didn't work out.

rglullis 3y ago

I'm totally on board with the idea for them to try it. At the very least, it would be some validation to those that kept complaining about "Social Dilemma" stuff and it would show that you can have a viable business if your network focuses more on quality than quantity. The only thing that baffles me is that it seems that people do not want to pay for the service of social media. People don't mind paying their phone or water bills, but for some strange reason using an internet service that requires an infinite amount of bandwidth and storage (not to mention human effort in moderation and feature development) should either be free or have some other ulterior motivation to justify its price tag.

Nextgrid 3y ago
It's not clear that people do not want to pay for it - none of the major social media network people want to be on have ever offered a paid option that would disable ads/dark patterns or add valuable features. The very few social networks that may have tried this were too small to matter even as free services, let alone paid, so no surprise it didn't work out.