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Sadly, I believe this is just one more step in the inevitable outcome for Twitter. As a business, it's value prop. is an advertising platform. Like all social m

Sadly, I believe this is just one more step in the inevitable outcome for Twitter. As a business, it's value prop. is an advertising platform. Like all social media, the value to advertising companies is to mix-in those ads alongside engaging user-generated content. There will always be associations with _other's content_ on such a platform. Advertisers don't want to do anything that would alienate or otherwise put-off their population of potential buyers. They want to avoid other strong emotions because they're trying to cultivate a specific emotional reaction: "I want to buy that thing!" No one is going to want to do that if they see extremely inflamatory content.

alwaysrunning 3y ago
"Advertisers don't want to do anything that would alienate or otherwise put-off their population of potential buyers" I'm not sure they think like this anymore.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  A big example of a faux pas within the past few years was some Airplane crash was being highlighted by the Twitter-algorithm as "Relevant to Airplanes", and a bunch of airlines were getting their advertising placed next to the crash. That pissed off ... some company... and apparently Twitter promised tools to help prevent this in the future. Those tools have been breaking this year. An advertisement's ability to generate good-will to the company is entirely dependent on context. Airplane advertisements (ie: Fly with Southwest) mean completely different things when they're next to airplane crashing news. ----------------------------- Simple rules like "If you have news about an airplane crash or other such disaster, please skip my advertisement until the next cycle" are a thing in traditional media. Especially for the high-paying industries. They expect an advertising partner to help control the context in which their advertisements are shown. EDIT: Another example is Micky Mouse or Tony the Tiger (and other such mascots) showing up next to Twitter Furry-porn. There's plenty of reasons for a company to try to control the context. In the case of furry-porn, its all legal (though uncomfortable), but it really makes animal-based mascots shown in a grossly different light and is terrible for messaging.
  - water-data-dude 3y ago
    That being said…Micky Mouse or Tony the Tiger showing up next to furry porn is likely to have a positive reaction from most consumers of furry porn, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
wvenable 3y ago
Advertisers have far more options for their advertising dollars than most people think. If they're not advertising on Twitter/X then they're putting their dollars somewhere else and getting the same return. The amount of trouble necessary for an advertiser to put most of their dollars somewhere else is vanishingly small. They don't need much of an excuse.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  In practice... the advertisers care about Facebook, Google, Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, Tencent (aka: Fortnite), Snapchat... I'd be surprised if Twitter were a top-10 website for advertising. Last time I was looking at Twitter's advertising revenue, they were far smaller than I expected.
thedaly 3y ago
I don't know. Twitter has been pushing the subscription model a lot and I suspect that will likely be the long term solution.
- tptacek 3y ago
  It had better not be, because the numbers on that don't work.
- nickthegreek 3y ago
  X pushing the subscription model only works if people subscribe. And the amount of subscription you need to service this level of debt is.... pretty high.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Twitter has been pushing the subscription model a lot and I suspect that will likely be the long term solution. That's obviously the intent, but you’d need a lot of paying subscribers to replace the ad revenue they’ve lost, even without the additional debt from the acquisition. There's no realistic way it works.
WD40forRust33 3y ago
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alwaysrunning 3y ago

"Advertisers don't want to do anything that would alienate or otherwise put-off their population of potential buyers" I'm not sure they think like this anymore.

dragontamer 3y ago
A big example of a faux pas within the past few years was some Airplane crash was being highlighted by the Twitter-algorithm as "Relevant to Airplanes", and a bunch of airlines were getting their advertising placed next to the crash. That pissed off ... some company... and apparently Twitter promised tools to help prevent this in the future. Those tools have been breaking this year. An advertisement's ability to generate good-will to the company is entirely dependent on context. Airplane advertisements (ie: Fly with Southwest) mean completely different things when they're next to airplane crashing news. ----------------------------- Simple rules like "If you have news about an airplane crash or other such disaster, please skip my advertisement until the next cycle" are a thing in traditional media. Especially for the high-paying industries. They expect an advertising partner to help control the context in which their advertisements are shown. EDIT: Another example is Micky Mouse or Tony the Tiger (and other such mascots) showing up next to Twitter Furry-porn. There's plenty of reasons for a company to try to control the context. In the case of furry-porn, its all legal (though uncomfortable), but it really makes animal-based mascots shown in a grossly different light and is terrible for messaging.
- water-data-dude 3y ago
  That being said…Micky Mouse or Tony the Tiger showing up next to furry porn is likely to have a positive reaction from most consumers of furry porn, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

wvenable 3y ago

Advertisers have far more options for their advertising dollars than most people think. If they're not advertising on Twitter/X then they're putting their dollars somewhere else and getting the same return. The amount of trouble necessary for an advertiser to put most of their dollars somewhere else is vanishingly small. They don't need much of an excuse.

dragontamer 3y ago
In practice... the advertisers care about Facebook, Google, Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, Tencent (aka: Fortnite), Snapchat... I'd be surprised if Twitter were a top-10 website for advertising. Last time I was looking at Twitter's advertising revenue, they were far smaller than I expected.

thedaly 3y ago

I don't know. Twitter has been pushing the subscription model a lot and I suspect that will likely be the long term solution.

tptacek 3y ago
It had better not be, because the numbers on that don't work.
nickthegreek 3y ago
X pushing the subscription model only works if people subscribe. And the amount of subscription you need to service this level of debt is.... pretty high.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> Twitter has been pushing the subscription model a lot and I suspect that will likely be the long term solution. That's obviously the intent, but you’d need a lot of paying subscribers to replace the ad revenue they’ve lost, even without the additional debt from the acquisition. There's no realistic way it works.

WD40forRust33 3y ago

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