5 ms·

X launches two new subscriptions to boost your replies

32 points by mindracer 3y ago

jaredwiener 3y ago
Unpopular(?) opinion: the people who pay for their replies to be boosted are the people whose replies I want to see the least.
- sbarre 3y ago
  That is the most popular opinion I think.
- huytersd 3y ago
  I cannot think of a more popular opinion
- aaron695 3y ago
  [dead]
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
  I wonder why that would be the case.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  I mean, I’m not sure this is an _unpopular_ opinion; generally if you have to pay for attention, you’re not worth paying attention to.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mym1990 3y ago
This is like pay to win mobile games, which, to be fair, generate an enormous of money. Don't see the same outcome for Twitt...X.
- sbarre 3y ago
  Yeah I came here with the same thought. Pay-to-win seems like a bad idea for Xitter (pronunciation left to the reader). Imagine if Hacker News allowed people to pay to have their replies show up first? This just tells me that Elmo doesn't care about discourse or being the "town square" at this point, he's just in panic mode trying to grow revenue, and he'll run the same grifter playbook that everyone else does. Pay us money to feel like you matter..
  - rchaud 3y ago
    P2W games still have ads, and those make plenty of money considering they can't be scrolled past like in Twitter.
  - mym1990 3y ago
    At this point he should just throw a hail mary and charge every user a mandatory subscription fee, and see who sticks around. Maybe he discovers that as a winning strategy, worst case scenario he loses 40+ billions and goes back to rocket science world.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
    See HN comment guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - sbarre 3y ago
      Sorry, can you be clearer about which guideline you believe I broke?
      - 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
        >When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
        3y ago
spiralx 3y ago
Having nothing but random comments by $8 subscribers at the top of every post has been pretty terrible for any sort of discussion between posters and followers already, but at least you could ignore/filter posts by their blue checkmark. Now you'll still get the above but you'll also get a bunch of $3 subscribers straight after the $8 posts, but without any obvious marker to show they've been boosted artificially. People have often accused Twitter of being full of people trying to shout the loudest and drowning out useful discussion, yet all of Musk's changes seem to be aimed at making this issue worse and worse. Soon there'll be a caste system where the only actual discussions will be between people on the same subscription tier.
- jjkaczor 3y ago
  Oh, you must have missed the update where blue checkmark people can HIDE their blue checkmark... So, you cannot even reliably filter/ignore based on that anymore...
  - kibwen 3y ago
    I have good news for you: all major browsers have partnered with X to make it easy to filter out people who pay for Blue. If you look closely at the browser tab, you will see an "X" icon expressly for this purpose.
    - Freedom2 3y ago
      I think the X button is there for other reasons, I'm not sure if it has explicitly anything to do with X?
      - cced 3y ago
        Mate it’s a joke, he is saying you can always close the browser window that has Twitter opened.
        Freedom2 3y ago
jrflowers 3y ago
I want a tier where users cannot navigate away from my tweets until they reply with “good post” or the thumbs up emoji
beoberha 3y ago
I’m long gone from Twitter (post-Elon, pre-X), so it makes me happy to see features like this roll out that will hopefully lead to its inevitable downfall. I loved Twitter pre-Elon, but understood the criticism people had. I wonder if there’s anyone (besides bots) who can say it’s better now than it was? Would be interested to hear from them :)
- add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
  It should limp along, but failing altogether would be bad. You could think of Twitter as a honeypot keeping the Eternal September and the spam and the bots etc. out of the newer sites that are building their own respective identities and enjoying the higher quality of community that you get with a controlled size.
monkaiju 3y ago
Twixter? Xitter? Xwixter? Wtf do we call the bad blue site!?!?
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
From the verge comments... Paying to be popular on social media is an idea that could only come from the mind of a fucking loser like Musk
kenver 3y ago
An impactful thing you can do for your health is delete all of your social apps and disengage from the circus completely. I did that a couple of months ago and it’s improved my concentration and given me back a lot more time to do other things. The small amounts of time add up, and the quality of all of your time improves. You don’t have to use these services, and we got along just fine (if not better) before they existed.
nologic01 3y ago
Does X have a subscription for chronological order of the timeline? Could be another pile of gold just lying there, ready for the taking.
rsynnott 3y ago
Pay-to-win social media just seems like an extremely stupid idea. Yes, you can pay to have your nonsense boosted up to the top, next to the other marks! Who on earth does _that_ appeal to?

32 points by mindracer 3y ago

Unpopular(?) opinion: the people who pay for their replies to be boosted are the people whose replies I want to see the least.

sbarre 3y ago
That is the most popular opinion I think.
huytersd 3y ago
I cannot think of a more popular opinion
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
I wonder why that would be the case.
rsynnott 3y ago
I mean, I’m not sure this is an _unpopular_ opinion; generally if you have to pay for attention, you’re not worth paying attention to.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mym1990 3y ago

This is like pay to win mobile games, which, to be fair, generate an enormous of money. Don't see the same outcome for Twitt...X.

sbarre 3y ago
Yeah I came here with the same thought. Pay-to-win seems like a bad idea for Xitter (pronunciation left to the reader). Imagine if Hacker News allowed people to pay to have their replies show up first? This just tells me that Elmo doesn't care about discourse or being the "town square" at this point, he's just in panic mode trying to grow revenue, and he'll run the same grifter playbook that everyone else does. Pay us money to feel like you matter..
- rchaud 3y ago
  P2W games still have ads, and those make plenty of money considering they can't be scrolled past like in Twitter.
- mym1990 3y ago
  At this point he should just throw a hail mary and charge every user a mandatory subscription fee, and see who sticks around. Maybe he discovers that as a winning strategy, worst case scenario he loses 40+ billions and goes back to rocket science world.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
  See HN comment guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - sbarre 3y ago
    Sorry, can you be clearer about which guideline you believe I broke?
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
      >When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
      - 3y ago

spiralx 3y ago

Having nothing but random comments by $8 subscribers at the top of every post has been pretty terrible for any sort of discussion between posters and followers already, but at least you could ignore/filter posts by their blue checkmark. Now you'll still get the above but you'll also get a bunch of $3 subscribers straight after the $8 posts, but without any obvious marker to show they've been boosted artificially. People have often accused Twitter of being full of people trying to shout the loudest and drowning out useful discussion, yet all of Musk's changes seem to be aimed at making this issue worse and worse. Soon there'll be a caste system where the only actual discussions will be between people on the same subscription tier.

jjkaczor 3y ago
Oh, you must have missed the update where blue checkmark people can HIDE their blue checkmark... So, you cannot even reliably filter/ignore based on that anymore...
- kibwen 3y ago
  I have good news for you: all major browsers have partnered with X to make it easy to filter out people who pay for Blue. If you look closely at the browser tab, you will see an "X" icon expressly for this purpose.
  - Freedom2 3y ago
    I think the X button is there for other reasons, I'm not sure if it has explicitly anything to do with X?
    - cced 3y ago
      Mate it’s a joke, he is saying you can always close the browser window that has Twitter opened.
      - Freedom2 3y ago

jrflowers 3y ago

I want a tier where users cannot navigate away from my tweets until they reply with “good post” or the thumbs up emoji

beoberha 3y ago

I’m long gone from Twitter (post-Elon, pre-X), so it makes me happy to see features like this roll out that will hopefully lead to its inevitable downfall. I loved Twitter pre-Elon, but understood the criticism people had. I wonder if there’s anyone (besides bots) who can say it’s better now than it was? Would be interested to hear from them :)

add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
It should limp along, but failing altogether would be bad. You could think of Twitter as a honeypot keeping the Eternal September and the spam and the bots etc. out of the newer sites that are building their own respective identities and enjoying the higher quality of community that you get with a controlled size.

monkaiju 3y ago

Twixter? Xitter? Xwixter? Wtf do we call the bad blue site!?!?

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

From the verge comments... Paying to be popular on social media is an idea that could only come from the mind of a fucking loser like Musk

kenver 3y ago

An impactful thing you can do for your health is delete all of your social apps and disengage from the circus completely. I did that a couple of months ago and it’s improved my concentration and given me back a lot more time to do other things. The small amounts of time add up, and the quality of all of your time improves. You don’t have to use these services, and we got along just fine (if not better) before they existed.

nologic01 3y ago

Does X have a subscription for chronological order of the timeline? Could be another pile of gold just lying there, ready for the taking.

rsynnott 3y ago

Pay-to-win social media just seems like an extremely stupid idea. Yes, you can pay to have your nonsense boosted up to the top, next to the other marks! Who on earth does _that_ appeal to?