
Proposal to Twitter. I want to pay for my account - thomasdd
https://twitter.com/tomas_dobrotka/status/799260630423310336
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weego
People always do this. No you don't want to, don't try and be a User-Hero. And
if for some insane reason you do want to, implementing and supporting it would
cost more than they would ever take in revenue because no one else wants to
pay apart from companies who then get preferential treatment.

~~~
_audakel
Pandora has a successful 3$ month ad free program

~~~
sp332
It's $5/mo or $55/year. And the vast majority of the money is still from
advertising.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_Radio#Business_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_Radio#Business_model)

~~~
delecti
Between

> advertising comprised 88% of Pandora's total revenues

and

> the vast majority of Pandora's users remain on the free, ad-supported model

There's really no way to know how revenue compares on a per-user basis between
paid and ads.

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malloreon
if anyone wants to do this right now, just create a promoted account ad
campaign and promote your own twitter account.

Now you get the privilege of paying for twitter and perhaps more followers
too.

~~~
paulcole
This is really funny because it's such a good idea that absolutely nobody will
listen to.

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EnderMB
I'm surprised that Twitter hasn't added a cost for verification, considering
these accounts have functionality that many of us don't have (i.e. ability to
filter interactions, etc). Sure, people can opt to not pay for verification,
but considering the value that top end users get from a presence on Twitter,
it almost seems to be a no-brainer to add a verification charge.

My only worry for going ad-free for a fee is that it provides an argument for
adverts to become even more of an inconvenience. If I could pay $5 a month to
skip adverts, then what is to stop Twitter from throwing a ton of ads on their
platform and then saying "if you don't like it, pay us".

~~~
herge
In the first few years, twitter had a hard cap on the number of followers (I
think it was like 10,000), and people with large audiences were forced to
manage their followers.

I wondered if they could have started charging 'brands' and celebrities to
break that barrier, but keep it free flowing for the hoipoloi like us.

~~~
EnderMB
Initially, it made sense, but nowadays I see loads of people that aren't
really all that notable with verified status, namely people that work for the
press in some way, or have had something notable happen to them. I know two
people with verified status on Twitter. One is a writer for a trashy celebrity
mag, and one is basically a Twitter loudmouth that was in the news recently.
In my opinion, these people don't really need verification, as they're using
Twitter as a medium to have conversations with everyone, whereas some notable
people might want to manage who they speak to.

You could always have multiple paid levels. $10 a year if you're a business
and you want to use Twitter as a customer service portal. $100 a year for the
badge if you have over 10,000 followers. $1,000 a year if you want to filter
who can tweet you.

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_audakel
I would absolutely pay for a twitter account. to remove ads but also support a
viable path to stay independent and functional. Twitter does a huge amount of
good in the world, and are important for freedom of ideas in many countries

~~~
overcast
Pay for advertising your account on there. That's how you support them. We
don't need subscriptions for normal users. No one is going to pay that.

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robbiemitchell
Just to add to the brainstorm: they could charge users who have over, say, 5k
followers a monthly fee to reach 100% of the audience instead of some
arbitrary mix of them. The fee would increase with the # of followers.

It's in the spirit of, but not exactly like, Facebook charging businesses to
reach more of their followers by "boosting" posts.

It would align the fees with the users who value most directly from using the
service as a mass media broadcast device -- a lot of whom are businesses or
quasi-businesses. They could waive fees for governments, educational
institutions, non-profits, whatever.

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Kihashi
Ask App Dot Net how that turned out. (Although there are definitely network
effects in play here that Twitter would have the advantage of.)

I want to pay $3/month for twitter, but I don't think they'll ever add it.

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omouse
Proposal to Twitter: let us own you as a public utility and turn into a co-
operative.

~~~
aikah
And who's going to pay for the infrastructure + thousands of engineers working
at Twitter ? this isn't realistic.

~~~
omouse
Public utility doesn't mean no one gets paid. You're the one not being
realistic.

~~~
aikah
You're the one not being realistic if you really think Twitter shareholders
and VC will accept a hair cut to make the corporation a "public utility".
That's ridiculous. Twitter is a mediocre social network, just because it is
popular doesn't make it "public utility".

~~~
omouse
No, you.

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gdulli
How about the way it was 18 months ago? I'd pay for that but not what it is
today.

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pier25
Other than having public direct contact with individuals and brands I never
saw the point of twitter. I thought I was in the minority a couple of years
ago when Twitter was growing exponentially. Now I see it's the other way
around.

I'm not surprised their ad revenue has been falling about 80% in the last 2
years. There's little communication in 140 characters and the chaotic stream
of tweets is unattractive to most users.

Maybe Twitter could be more vaulable if owned by Google or Facebook, and
integrated in the services of those giants.

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0xmohit
I'm amazed by the amount of abuse that's prevalent on Twitter. This is based
on observation of replies to tweets by certain individuals. Abusive comments
being retweeted and fav'd is such a commonplace. It's hard to imagine how can
one continue using the platform.

It's apparent that there are huge number of accounts that are created in order
to promote individuals, governments, products, ...

Twitter seems to be only interested in user base growth (which would directly
affect its valuation).

~~~
SyneRyder
It's about who you follow. I never see any abuse on Twitter, but I am ruthless
about unfollowing anybody who is overly negative or abusive. I also have a few
mute filters for topics I'm not interested in. It makes for a much better
experience.

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45h34jh53k4j
I wouldn't ever pay for twitter, or any other social media. I am like 99% of
users, and this is a non-stater.

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drinchev
There was App.net once ... Where you have to actually pay to use it [1] and it
was ad-free twitter clone. It failed.

1 :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net)

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jaimehrubiks
You need to take into account that twitter is losing users and not precisely
due to the recent changes. They need to change and get new features to gain
popularity, wether you like it or not. That's my view, maybe I'm wrong.

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lucodibidil
You pay $7/month to stay the same? Or any other improvement you want?

~~~
thomasdd
Good question! but I don't know the answer. maybe its a paradox :) I know
everything has to move forward and evolve! Anyway, I like the 140 Character
limit on Twitter. My post is acctualy exactly 140 characers long :) as most of
my tweets. Just wanted to point out, that the current popularity of Twitter is
based on current state. And maybe some payment options would be fine for
people who care andn consider Twitter as the source of news and knowledge.

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macspoofing
Twitter's problem is that either it's losing users, or not growing fast
enough. Adding paid accounts doesn't address that.

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tyingq
After this year's election season, I might be willing to pay for a
phrase/keyword filter that hides specific tweets from me :)

~~~
SyneRyder
You don't need Twitter to add that, you can have that feature today - get a
3rd party Twitter client, like Fenix on Android or Tweetbot on iOS & Mac. Both
have the feature to mute by keyword (and yes, I did have Trump / Clinton /
Election as mute words this year).

Both are paid software, but the $15 USD for Tweetbot Mac is _absolutely_ worth
it to me... in fact, I think it's a bargain for something I use every day.

(As a bonus, the third party clients are still ad-free as well, and no "while
you were away" feature.)

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rch
If you're serious, why not launch an 'awareness' campaign about it?

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RickS
I was part of their beta for awhile and requested this as well. No response.

