Interesting. I’m not familiar with either can you elaborate?

I think you misunderstood his point. His point was that payment requires a certain amount of verification through the banking system which would make it harder to use massive bots to spread misinformation. Government doesn’t have the power to sidestep that process. Hence his comment that they “can’t do spells”.

He never said bots aren’t on Twitter or that the US is too powerful to allow bots on Twitter. That’s how it was lost in translation.

I thought that was Musk’s motivation for making the purchase - to free Twitter from the shackles of the PC police. Of course in jurisdictions that have banned free speech Twitter has to follow the law.

With respect to the filter idea, I think it’s dangerous to just set Twitter on “echo chamber” mode. In my opinion too many people only consume news/media that confirms their beliefs and that’s causing the violent political divisions in the US. This is an oversimplification but before social media and algorithm-selected news people could have civil discussions over political disagreements. Now I don’t even understand the other side because I can’t have a productive conversation on substantive political issues.

Interesting. Why would you want a bot on WoW that uses a stolen credit card? Wouldn’t you lose the account once the card is frozen?

I don’t know jack about WoW so that may be a dumb question.

I agree he doesn’t need another $30 million, which was my point that it’s pocket change to him.

The transparency over “why”’is just what are people willing to pay? if people will pay $100/month they’ll charge that, if people won’t pay anything then they can’t charge anything. Some people think Twitter is worth a lot to them and they’ll pay but others, like me, wouldn’t pay a dime for Twitter as it currently exists. They will pick a price point that they believe will maximize their revenue. They just don’t know what that is at the moment so numbers are all over the place.

Just spitballing here…what if Twitter charged $5/month for a blue check and unlimited tweets and everyone else paid $0.05 per tweet. Accounts can read tweets for free but accounts need a verified payment method to tweet.

Using shillyshally’s assumptions above if 10% of users pay $5/month that’s $175 million/month or $2.1 billion annually. According to Google there are about 500 million tweets per day at $0.05 per tweet that’s over $9 billion per year. (Of course that would be lower because of the unlimited accounts and people tweeting less often).

I can see the combination of verified payment method and $/per tweet significantly reducing bots/trolls/and misinformation. A cleaner platform may encourage more actual people to use it in the long run.

I could also see a revenue sharing model where people who pay $5/month share in the revenue generated by their tweets. Like they receive $0.01 per comment/retweet plus a share of the ad revenue derived from their account. Under those circumstances an unlimited user would have a “free” Account if they generate 500 comments/retweets per month. Those “free” accounts would generate $25/month in tweet revenue for Twitter, $20/month profit. Assuming 10% of accounts reach that threshold that’s about $8.5 billion in additional net revenue for Twitter.

Obviously market research would need to back these assumptions but I could see something like this turning Twitter into a very profitable business with higher quality content.

I eat fat free yogurt daily. To each their own…

I like your analysis.

I think you bring up a good point that content creators aren’t going to be cool with the concept of paying for the privilege of making Twitter $.

Long term Twitter is going to need to come up with a model that allows content creators to share in the revenue they generate for the platform similar to YouTube. People don’t work for free and if they do then you get what you pay for…

Your math regarding servicing debt is also valid, but let’s examine your conclusion. $1.05 billion in debt service annually minus $630 million in pre-sale cash flow equals $420 million needed to service the new debt. At $1 per month you estimate additional revenue of $420 million. So the math does pencil out…

It is for someone who is worth $200 billion and bought a company, that is losing $800 million per year, for $44 billion. $30 million a year in additional revenue isn’t going to make Twitter a worthwhile purchase.

OP is talking about Twitter eventually becoming a paid service for everyone and how that transition would reduce the prevalence of bots.

I don’t understand the relevance of your first two paragraphs discussing government operation/regulation of Twitter. And your last paragraph doesn’t follow at all from the premise that everyone needs to pay for Twitter. If these concepts are connected to OP’s post then please help us see the connection.

This is an interesting point. In my mind there’s a distinction between being able to read tweets and tweeting. It could be free to have an account and read tweets/follow accounts but $1/month to tweet. Or you get X number of free tweets per month. That would solve the issue of access to Twitter for impoverished populations and reduce the prevalence of bots/trolls.

Or a payment system could be that accounts purchase Tweets, I.e. you buy 100 tweets for $1. Bots and trolls are only harmful to the extent they can tweet.

My theory is that Musk will try to solve the bot problem by initially shrinking the platform and reducing the cost of operating it. Then try to rebuild the user population with new/better features that people will want to pay for- just like newspaper/magazine subscription. Hopefully the end result is a Twitter that is a highly positive cash flow business.

For the bodybuilders among us, Twitter is an obese and sick business that needs to undergo a major cut cycle before focusing on bulking. The key is Musk needs to trim the fat without losing too much muscle.