All of this is so funny in general. It seems possible that Twitter might go the way of Tumblr in that goofy policy changes alienate the core userbase. I couldn’t imagine betting billions of dollars on a property that could basically just become a valuable-ish domain in the future.
1. allow people to pay for a blue check to be verified
> Nobody is going to pay for something that is no longer a status symbol because it can simply be bought
2. make "twitter blue" actually valuable (e.g. detailed analytics on your followers, tools for composing threads, actually monetizing revue)
> Or just give people these metrics because if they care about them they probably care about creating quality and engaging content and seeing how well it performs.
3. payments
> Perhaps - but for what? I don't see myself going to Twitter, let alone to find something to buy and then pay for it using Twitter-dollars or whatever they dream up.
1. allow people to pay for a blue check to be verified
> Nobody is going to pay for something that is no longer a status symbol because it can simply be bought
Tell that to all the luxury brands that make low-end products for everyone now. This is extremely naive. There is a price point where the blue checkmark will sell like wildfire, and then it's basically free money because there's no operational cost associated to it.
Let's say 5$/year for some kind of BS "verification" process that gives you a blue checkmark? Free money! Want to spend 20$/year for "extra-secure verification" to get a gold checkmark? FREE MONEY...
Luxury brands have always made low end products for the petite bourgeoisie. Their products offerings are deliberate pyramids of increasing artificial scarcity which many clever people have wasted lives designing.
‘Just charge for the check mark’ seems quite likely to fail in the ways your interlocutor alludes. Moreover, this particular status symbol is explicitly not a marker of wealth, but rather of a more nebulous type of status.
I was arguing the point that "exclusivity that anyone can buy has less value" made by OP..
It most definitely does not, in the eyes of enough people to still be valuable. They will purchase the appearance of exclusivity, even if it's not actually that exclusive.
Of course there will be a minority of people who understand (and deride) the fake-exclusivity, but not enough for the blue checkmark to lose enough value.
I think there's value in having a verified online identity. A place someone could find out a good bit about how you think. Twitter seems like a pretty good place to do that.
Slight difference: Tumblr's core userbase were edgy teenagers and porn consumers, Twitter's core userbase appears to be press people, marketing professionals, celebrities and politicians. I think this userbase will be less inclined to just move on to Mastodon and more to make demands to Musk instead.
I think if someone created Twitter for journalists, pundits, wonks, and politicians -ONLY- maybe it would be a place to go? Like something that requires a journalism credential, or a TV host, or an actually office holder title. Sure there'd be crazies, but at least there'd be a source for hot takes.
Twitter could still exist for "citizen journalism", but the two wouldn't mix as heavily.
Yeah, they use Twitter instead of booking someone to talk. Much easier to find a few tweets from someone recognizable than to get them in studio. Reporting on tweeting gives the 24 hour cycle something to do that gets attention. A journalist echo chamber would be less effective at this.
I was thinking about this a bit and I think the real value is Twitter is the random chance that $FAMOUS_PERSON might notice one of your tweets etc (Eg “Elon retweeted my hot take”)
If you take that away does that remove the essence of the site?
What is the benefit of someone famous retweeting a nonfamous person? Bragging rights? Is that value? It seems to me more like a sign that someone needs to work on their internal self-validation mechanisms. Of course, most of the consumers of vapid social media are K=1 thinkers, so maybe that IS the value of twitter and I'm just an out of touch elitist. All are possible.
He will probably cleave twitter in two - something for journalists and celebrities and then an equivalent of the demonetized youtube space for the people advertisers dont want to associate with.
Instead of banning accounts he will just make them second class citizens.
Tumblr was very North America/Europe centric platform, with most users often posting about very niche topics that most people aren't interested in.
On the other hand, twitter is a pretty global platform, yes a big share of its users is from the US, but japan, brazil, the middle east constitute a huge part of its userbase, so while I wouldn't say that losing the part of twitter that hates elon and his policies won't be a problem (if that ever happens), it's impact won't be as large as tumblr, because no one cares about elon in japan.
The topics discussed on twitter are also far less niche and more current, politicians, celebrities, artists, companies all use it, so it mostly can't experience meltdown by changing its policies, because what's keeping people on twitter is other people, not the policies.
Yes this does mean that if those people leave every one will with them, but there is simply no alternative to twitter to leave to right now, mastadon is a joke, discord and reddit are just a different form of social media that wouldn't satisfy twitter users
Maybe someone can make a new platform just like twitter? but I doubt that elon's decisions can be that bad.
He mostly has to keep it the same, and he won't lose a single user.
> The topics discussed on twitter are also far less niche and more current, politicians, celebrities, artists, companies all use it, so it mostly can't experience meltdown by changing its policies,
So this is actually a very interesting question to me, is this your gut or do you have data for this, I can certainly see why you say this, but based on all the people here who talk about how to “use twitter right” my gut was the opposite, certainly in terms of cultural relevance you are correct, but in terms of MDAU’s I assume twitter is mostly people following their “niche” (not as niche as tumblr” interests. Like for me that is music and software engineers/former coworkers, and decidedly not politicians and journalists. Twitter seems to have some exclusivity there but seems to compete heavily with Instagram in the artist/influencer space.
“Objection, Your Honor. The question assumes facts not in evidence.”
Neither my comment nor the comment to which I was replying made any claim about the reliability of Elon’s statements, my beliefs on that subject, or the effects of Elon’s actions on my beliefs.
Your Honor, the witness clearly stated in response to a question regarding Elon Musk's policies an opinion which clearly implied that Musk's statements in regards to free speech meant that he would have a free speech policy. Can we have the court reporter read it back?
"Question: Can you elaborate on his policies? I personally do not have first-hand knowledge of them. As far as I know, it’s currently a big question mark.
Witness: Elon has expressed support for free speech and treating both left and right equally."
Does the witness wish to clarify their statement or will they state the factors which lead to their belief that Elon Musk would do things in line with he says?
He says a lot of things, however, and the fact that he’s describing that as something other than the status quo it is means we shouldn’t take this at face value.
I think this reveals more about what you think the current split is... A large proportion of the right believe things like misgendering and wanting to kick Muslims out of the country is fine. These kinds of things aren't allowed on twitter.
Understanding why the last part isn’t correct is key to understanding the issue: Republicans aren’t getting kicked off of Twitter for saying they want to reform immigration law. Twitter’s rules very specifically have a “targeted harassment” clause, as you can see from the many accounts which never have problems despite expressing both sentiments on a regular basis. Even the guys posting about how Jews run the world and should be killed are rarely banned unless they mention a specific person.
Tumblr died because they banned all NSFW content. Many of them went to Twitter. If Elon decides to do the same (doubt he will), Twitter would absolutely fade away quite fast.
This doesn't really mean much. I know people like to use this as 'see they're a shill'-- but does Elon really need to pay people in order to get into petty fights about him? This literally is completely inconsequential. He's a billionaire, he owns twitter and can do what he wants. People can complain all day and it has literally no effect. He says things that piss people off literally every single day. The best thing to do is just ignore him instead of feeding him more attention
Now that's odd right? Account created in 2019 and not a single comment until now. The comment is also just a quick rebuttal with no substance, the type of comment made by someone who you'd think would comment often.
So either
People who manipulate opinions for some group, country, or company on social media keep accounts stored so when needed they can perform their job.
Or, this person read hackernews for 3 years and never commented (ignoring deleted comments) until just now and only to basically say "no".
“Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.”
Sometimes people lurk because they know they’re going to be scrutinised by self appointed gatekeepers and so try and wait until they have something perfect. Only to later just jump in the pool with something simple.
Your either is not complete, there are plenty of other possibilities.
