
Opt-outs highlight the tension between privacy and revenue at Twitter - randomwalker
https://internetofthieves.org/posts/twitter-map-optout/
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zestyping
Interesting. If the article is correct about the reason for the privacy
setting change, then that means Twitter is unable to figure out how to make
enough money while respecting people's privacy choices. Twitter only exists in
Europe because it is subsidized by Twitter in less privacy-conscious
countries.

If Twitter can't make enough money to survive while respecting their users'
privacy choices, maybe that's the market telling Twitter that it shouldn't
exist. You know, invisible hand and all.

~~~
PaywallBuster
Article doesn't say it cannot survive, simply its unable to achieve revenue
targets [from investors].

~~~
dannyw
And there are plenty of other ways to achieve revenue targets that's not
advertising:

* Integration of memberships like Patreon - Twitter can essentially kill Patreon by building Patreon with better discovery and a non-4GB-memory-eating SPA.

* YouTube Premium, Discord Nitro-like premium memberships with extra features

* Awards like Reddit gold

* Reduce costs by laying off employees

* Focus on core investments and get rid of non-revenue generating projects

Advertising shouldn't be the only business model you embrace.

~~~
itronitron
I think they, and other social platforms should charge by number of followers
an account has. Free for anyone with less than 100 followers, $10 a month for
1000, $100 a month for 10K followers, etc. (and the account owner sets the
follower limit but can raise it to the next tier if they want)

~~~
champagneben
This could set a really perverse incentive for people to start monetising
their followers.

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Animats
Basic Twitter might cost about as much to run as Craigslist. Do users really
want all the add on junk? Or is it mostly there to benefit advertisers?

~~~
marcinzm
Craigslist doesn't need to personalize what it shows for every user which
makes it cheap to run. Twitter does. I want my timeline based on those I
follow and not your timeline.

~~~
kungato
How complex and demanding do you expect "personalize what I want to see" to
be? I remember when i used facebook how I hated when they removed the
chronological timeline showing everything Im following. Personally all these
"personalization" features are anti features to me. I always though they need
this fuzziness to charge for placement of ads and adlike stuff

~~~
marcinzm
Your chronological timeline IS a personalization. Doing that at scale adds a
lot of complexity over something like Craigslist which doesn't need it.

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monadic2
Ad-sponsored social media seems fucked.

~~~
thepangolino
What I don’t get is why they can’t go back to contextual ads. Should be
obvious to figure out that users following people posting about topic X might
actually be interested about commercial offerings in field X.

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furyg3
How does twitter determine region? If someone uses a VPN do they get different
privacy settings? How long do those settings apply forbid they are traveling?

~~~
aspenmayer
‘How does Twitter set my country setting?

‘When you access Twitter, we may receive information about your location, such
as your IP address, precise location information from GPS, or information
about wireless networks or cell towers near your mobile device. We use
information about your location to determine the country setting for your
account, based on the countries where we make our services available. If we
are unable to successfully resolve your location to one of these countries, it
will be set to the United States by default.‘

[https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-
cha...](https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-change-
country-settings)

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aspenmayer
The country setting can be changed by the user. If one wanted to change their
country to a GDPR respecting EU country, which should one choose? Does it
matter?

[https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-
cha...](https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-change-
country-settings)

