The Capitalist Case for Overhauling Twitter nymag.com
@jeremycherfas I wonder how many users would actually pay for Twitter. That's the core problem in ridding ourselves of ad-driven social media, as far as I can tell. The author suggests having influencers bear the cost of the platform, but I'm not sure the maths work out as neatly as they seems to think, if Twitter doesn't want its revenue to shrink. If we take YouTube Premium subscribers (which pay per month more or less what the author suggests Twitter should charge), that's currently 1% of the total number of YouTube users. Note that I'm perfectly fine with the idea of being a paying user for a social media platform (I am), I just don't think a significant slice of Twitter users share this willingness.
@giov I think that the additional points he makes, about adding value for the accounts with lots of followers and maybe generating content would change the nature of the company and its perception. You did notice how much stock he holds?
@jeremycherfas Oh yeah, no arguing with the other points, I agree with the overall tone & arguments, and find the ideas he puts forward interesting. Just didn't find the specific "15% of paying users" argument very compelling, as if that worked we would probably already be well on our way out of the current sorry state of things with social media. After all, I wouldn't consider it a tragedy if Twitter lost a (significant) fraction of its users because of a new monetization strategy, if it came with the benefits of a healthier community. I just wonder whether Twitter is able to make this decision.
@jeremycherfas Yes, and I wonder whether one can expect new leadership to make the hard decisions. On the other hand, it seems like the current course leads straight to the iceberg, and that stakeholders like the author are fed up and want a fundamental shift of direction (and leadership). I really hope this materializes, we need good examples of alternative business models in this area. Thanks for sharing this!