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boogrit t1_iux1cnu wrote

Damn. Crazy to look at the numbers laid out like this. Charging for a check mark for verified users is just a drop in the bucket looking at the big picture. A subscription-based system may not be the best way to profitability... but what other options are there?

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stellarinterstitium t1_iuxeqks wrote

I think they need to recognize that the platform itself is not the value of the offering, it's all the people who participate/provide content. Because of this, there should be a minimal expectation of massive returns. Why should the people providing the value do the paying to support high returns for billionaires?

The platform only fails against the weight of unreasonable expectations for high margin returns from minimal value added. Private ownership should able to filter out these unreasonable expectations that primarily come from the rent-seeking investor class aka Wall St.

Operating cost cuts are fair game to increase this margin, but not at the expense of reducing the quality of participant submissions, which erodes the value of the platform if not protected.

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Beansilluminate t1_iuy70gp wrote

You can say this about any social platform though.

Same thing for Facebook and it was able to print money for a decade

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JCPRuckus t1_iuyfgr3 wrote

Facebook lets you connect to your family/friend group. Twitter is random people either quipping or yelling at each other. There's just less value there.

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stellarinterstitium t1_iuyq1k2 wrote

And it's a lot of work filtering out the garbage, because algorithms foist whatever there business model wants upon you inspitenofnyour best efforts. Facebook has this problem too, however.

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stellarinterstitium t1_iuypshz wrote

Yes. So much so that they tripped over the moral hazard of spending the windfall on the VR boondoggle.

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ItWouldBeGrand t1_iuz3wyk wrote

Because the service is as valuable for the high profile users as it is for the business.

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phdpeabody t1_iv0h5s5 wrote

All the people participating would argue the platform is the value. So in business, Twitter provides utility value, in that the technology is capable of providing services to the customer, as well as network value, in that the number of customers participating in those services provide a unique value to the customers.

The customers provide neither of these values to the service.

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BorderlineCreative t1_iuxw4xz wrote

Your best bet is to lower your own expenses and rely on AD revenue. You start making people pay for the service and they’ll just leave to another competitor who makes they money off of data mining. All it will take is for Elon doing something super fucked up and enough celebrities to leave twitter to a new competitor that appeals to the younger generation and it’s done. He’s not making his 44 billion back anytime soon and definitely not be the time a competitor starts up that lures in user base.

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phdpeabody t1_iv0gws2 wrote

One thing this chat isn’t looking at?

Would Twitter still be collecting 90% of the advertising revenue, if 10% of the people were paying for their subscription. Or even better, would they still be collecting 100% of the revenue, with non-subscribing users just seeing 10% more advertising.

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skantanio t1_iuxnx33 wrote

Yeah 8 seems like kinda an arbitrary number, so I feel like they put thought into it. But then again, it’s Elon, so I wouldn’t doubt he didn’t have the foresight to even do a mental multiplication to see if the magnitudes line up (couple hundred thousand verified users * not even 10 dollars = a few tens of million dollars = like 0.0002% of what he spent on Twitter overall)

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catesnake t1_iuywcxe wrote

Paid creator content. Essentially the Onlyfans model just without the porn. Okay, less porn.

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Mattie725 t1_iuyxvux wrote

Step one is not profitability. It's cleaning up the platform.

I don't understand why people ignore the reasons Elon literally gives. (just kidding, I do understand - don't agree- people just want to hate anything he does...) There is, or Elon believes there is a massive bot problem. Verified accounts will be more prominent. No scammer is going to pay 8$ a month for each of his thousand bots so they get pushed down.

Now, am I a fan of pushing down actual people who don't want to pay? No. But can we please stop ignoring the legitimate parts of his reasoning?

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DaBIGmeow888 t1_iuzap60 wrote

Cutting jobs and increasing prices while overpaying for Twitter and getting in debt... Is totally about profitability.

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ArkGuardian t1_iuznon9 wrote

It's not 8$ to use Twitter - only for services which include verification. A scammer doesn't use or need those services.

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