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it's official: tweets will be sunk to the bottom unless author pays subscription

Sybrix

Sybrix

Member
I mean..... i'm not a billionaire and don't know shit about running a successful business but it seems to me that adding this charge is going to kill off a huge percentage of users from the platform.

Twitter is the virtual town square, you go to the town square to chat and debate, would you pay $8 a month to have entry into that town square? I wouldn't.
 
LegendOfKage

LegendOfKage

Member
Sybrix said:
Twitter is the virtual town square, you go to the town square to chat and debate, would you pay $8 a month to have entry into that town square? I wouldn't.
Click to expand...
This exactly. I do understand the point of it, which would help with bots and spam, but he's gotta figure out a way to deal with those issues for free. He's going to get a lot of push back on this, and I'd say deservedly so.

However, that video did skip around a lot, so I'm still waiting to hear the full details on how everything is proposed to work. We might be lacking some context. If it's as bad as it sounds, people need to speak up, because that's not my idea of "free" speech.
 
FunkMiller

FunkMiller

Member
Elon appears to be labouring under the misapprehension that Twitter users owe it something - rather than the truth, which is very much the other way around. He’s overestimating its importance, which is fatal to any social media company, when there are many alternatives to choose from.

But then, he’s clearly too far down the Twitter bullshit rabbit hole, which is why he grossly overpaid for it.
 
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Cyberpunkd

Cyberpunkd

Member
Sybrix said:
I mean..... i'm not a billionaire and don't know shit about running a successful business but it seems to me that adding this charge is going to kill off a huge percentage of users from the platform.
Click to expand...
Is that a negative? Majority of users in Twitter are either bots or have nothing constructive to say. Elon follows the old maxim of "if it's free it has no value", which i agree with.
 
Cyberpunkd

Cyberpunkd

Member
Sybrix said:
Twitter is the virtual town square, you go to the town square to chat and debate, would you pay $8 a month to have entry into that town square? I wouldn't.
Click to expand...
But it is not. You are not debating, you are voicing your opinions in the void hoping you will get a response. Twitter is a one-way echo chamber of people jumping on the band wagon, at least this change will filter those that are just for the ride from those that have something to say.
 
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jufonuk

jufonuk

not tag worthy
PVo2QRB.jpg
 
sankt-Antonio

sankt-Antonio

:^)--?-<
Sybrix said:
I mean..... i'm not a billionaire and don't know shit about running a successful business but it seems to me that adding this charge is going to kill off a huge percentage of users from the platform.

Twitter is the virtual town square, you go to the town square to chat and debate, would you pay $8 a month to have entry into that town square? I wouldn't.
Click to expand...
Me neither. Never had a social media presence.
But I think the validation drug people seek will make them pay 8 Dollars to further get their dopamine.

Just watch and be amazed at stupidity of most folks.
 
FunkMiller

FunkMiller

Member
sankt-Antonio said:
Me neither. Never had a social media presence.
But I think the validation drug people seek will make them pay 8 Dollars to further get their dopamine.

Just watch and be amazed at stupidity of most folks.
Click to expand...

The issue is, it's not just about the people who will pay for their tweets to have more exposure, it's about the reaction of the tens of millions who just want to read other people's tweets. The reaction to 'am I only seeing this because they paid for me to see it?' is not going to be good. Social media platforms rely at least in part on that whole sense of a 'community of interest'. If everyone knows they're only seeing someone's opinion because they've paid, it'll kinda ruin that.

TLDR - you don't monetize basic social media platform functionality.
 
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NightmareFarm

NightmareFarm

Member
I don't use twitter but i'm glad he changed it. I don't like the popularity contest hierarchy thing going on with ticks. Someone needs to do the same thing with youtube.
 
V1LÆM

V1LÆM

Gold Member
Dr. Wilkinson said:
Why is it Facebook makes so much money? They’ve never had to charge a subscription.
Click to expand...
not sure if you're being serious but the answer is adverts and collecting/selling data of users.

facebook on the surface might look like a social media platform but it's gathering information on literally everyone and that includes people who never signed up to facebook. what they do is create a "shadow profile" so if you never joined facebook they most likely still have a profile for you. if you've ever gave someone your data (phone number, email, address, etc) and they are on facebook and sync their contacts then your data is on facebooks servers. they take that data and match it with existing users or start building a profile on you. for example, i don't use facebook anymore but people at my work do. person A has my name/number. person B has my name/number. person C. person D. facebook will have a profile with name and phone number. if i were ever to sign up then they'd be like well that phone number matches so we'll recommend you friend person A/B/C/D. they actually have a tool where you can put in your email/phone number to check if they have it and you can mark it not to be used. it's a bit fucking stupid because they still have your info. it's just goes onto a "not allowed to use" list.

think of all the shit people post on facebook and then know that facebook will track you across the internet through their "Pixel" tracker. if you've ever seen a FB icon, "log in with facebook", or looked an embedded photo/share link on a website then facebook knows you visited that site.

and that's just facebook. instagram is more of the same and whatsapp too.

all that data is collected to build adverts to show you and your data is valuable so it makes them $.

google/facebook/amazon are probably the worst when it comes to tracking you. twitter hardly compares in scale to what those 3 gather on you.
 
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Cyberpunkd

Cyberpunkd

Member
FunkMiller said:
The issue is, it's not just about the people who will pay for their tweets to have more exposure, it's about the reaction of the tens of millions who just want to read other people's tweets. The reaction to 'am I only seeing this because they paid for me to see it?' is not going to be good. Social media platforms rely at least in part on that whole sense of a 'community of interest'. If everyone knows they're only seeing someone's opinion because they've paid, it'll kinda ruin that.

TLDR - you don't monetize basic social media platform functionality.
Click to expand...
But that has not been the case for a long time now, unless you have no brain - of course the algorithm takes into account what is more popular, more viral, posted by celebrity vs. regular person. So the boost happens either way.
funkygunther said:
He has to break even on his 44 billion investment first.
Click to expand...
Depends on how the contract is structured. He has investors that bank-rolled his acquisition, chances if Twitter goes bankrupt they have no / little claim on his other assets.
 
funkygunther

funkygunther

Banned
Cyberpunkd said:
Depends on how the contract is structured. He has investors that bank-rolled his acquisition, chances if Twitter goes bankrupt they have no / little claim on his other assets.
Click to expand...

chances of investors not being able to either recoup their losses or, more to the point of this actual discussion, use the money made from Twitter in the period before its demise to recoup those losses are only high if you think the investors are as dumb as Musk
 
Cyberpunkd

Cyberpunkd

Member
funkygunther said:
chances of investors not being able to either recoup their losses or, more to the point of this actual discussion, use the money made from Twitter in the period before its demise to recoup those losses are only high if you think the investors are as dumb as Musk
Click to expand...
Well, he is the richest guy on Earth, so....
 
Hugare

Hugare

Member
Cyberpunkd said:
Is that a negative? Majority of users in Twitter are either bots or have nothing constructive to say. Elon follows the old maxim of "if it's free it has no value", which i agree with.
Click to expand...
Old maxim that doesnt work in the 21st century

Facebook is free, Instagram is free, Tik Tok is free, Youtube is free, and I could go on and on

Do you really think that there's no value to them just because they are free?

Their value lies on them being free. "If something is free, then you are the product". People are the product on social media.

So yeah, Twitter loosing millions of users would be a negative.
 
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Hugare

Hugare

Member
Cyberpunkd said:
It's not free, it makes money by actively selling your data which you agree to when you use the service. How is this news in 2022?
Click to expand...
So we agree that less users = less data to sell = less revenue ?

Dont know how can you agree to this while saying that some users leaving the platform wouldnt matter
 
Pagusas

Pagusas

Elden Member
If Twitter dies another platform will just rise up in its place. This all seems to be a pointless game to control a town square that can change to a different platform quickly.
 
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