If it were an intelligent business practice, they’d be paying Stephen King $2000 a month (or $20,000) for the followers he brings to the platform.
(Maybe not that much, but it seems that many people, Musk included, misunderstand the fundamental nature of that relationship, and who is the one benefitting.)
Well, yes, but I’m trying to accept the original, flawed, reasoning and build a better business case for it than what idiocy Elon is doing.
Fair.
Now, if paying my $20 a month puts me in a monthly drawing for a free Tesla or ride on Starship, then we can talk.
Google doesn’t misunderstand this. Instagram doesn’t misunderstand this. Facebook doesn’t. All of these social media systems actively pay influencers to post content on their various channels, including YouTube.
Hell, this problem was solved by broadcast television in 1948, lol. Radio in 1922. Newspapers in the late 19th-century.
You pay the talent. The talent doesn’t pay you
Oh, I agree, they certainly don’t, which is why they are successful. By “many people” I meant the people who think that Musk’s idea to charge the creators who draw users to their platform is a good idea.
Twitter has probably gotten away with it because content creators tend to not create on their platform. They use it to centralize their fanbase and to point them at the platforms where views do translate into dollars.
I suspect Musk is hoping that most creators will balk at leaving that hub behind. Stephen King has 7 million followers. If he leaves Twitter, most of them will not start checking his blog just for a Stephen King update.
King probably doesn’t give a particular crap, but a lot of other creators may.
Then you just create a business opportunity for people who know how to handle a social media site, unlike Elon Musk. Again, talent must be paid. Or at least not charged in order to create their content. This is even true for a nothing site like the SDMB.
“Instead of me paying you to work, how about you pay me?”
As is ever the case, inertia is the mightiest force on the internet. Even if Twitter launched a brand new service called Twitter2 and required all users to re-register on new accounts, they would lose enormous swaths of people who couldn’t be bothered. Famous people would lose millions of people from defunct accounts, bots, and people who find they just don’t care enough to click the button again. A brand-new social media site won’t even get a fraction of that.
And fewer followers is problematic for content creators, who can use those numbers as leverage in sponsorship deals.
I mean, I don’t disagree with you at all. Musk is essentially holding his biggest users hostage. Nice big set of followers you got there. You want to leave? How many do you think will follow you? It’s stupid. But it’s not incomprehensible.
He’s not blogging on Twitter. For pithy quips he’ll just up his Instagram activity or focus on some other platform. Twitter is a thing, but it’s not without alternatives.
Sure, not all 7 million will immediately jump over. But enough will to keep him happy. And while I doubt more than a tiny fraction of his followers are exclusively following him and will leave if he’s not on Twitter, it’s still a reduction in traffic and content.
Twitter is a billboard not a TV broadcaster. King might not want to pay the $20/month, but I bet his agent would.
There’s only 400k registered users. That’s 0.1% of the total users (bots and all). Even if they all paid, I don’t think the $8M/month would help that much.
Also I don’t understand the comment about anyone being able to verify as someone else. I assume the verification criteria would stay in place and duplicates would be sorted out.
And it’s not like King wasn’t doing pretty well for himself before twitter came along.
I can see content creators who got their start and grew on social media like twitter thinking that it’s a platform that they need to maintain their following, and they may be right.
But there are also a lot of content creators who only are on the platform because their fans want them on that platform, the fans want more access. And I’d say that those content creators are the ones that twitter gets far more benefit from than the creators get from being there.
There’s another thing Musk is missing - a lot of people will see this $20 as a personal endorsement of Musk. Plenty of famous people would find that a bigger hit to their reputation than the loss of the blue check (or the end of their Twitter account entirely).
Maybe, and maybe his agent would prefer that he not be able to speak his mind at a touch of a button, rather than through his agent.
And there’s the principle of the matter. King seemed to have no problem advertising for twitter for free for years, but if twitter wants him to pay for it, it’s not about how much it is, it’s that they want him to pay at all for something that they benefit from.
IPG, the largest ad agency in the world, is recommending to clients (including J&J, Amex, and Spotify) to pause their efforts to promote on Twitter.
If a billboard has no advertising, does the bird still tweet?
Do you want your ad posted next to hate speech?
Until Musk clears up exactly what and how his moderation policies will be, no one is going to risk being associated with the sort of thing that he promises to be bringing back.
Sorry, but I disagree with this. The vast proliferation of social media sites speaks to the opposite:
Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, NextDoor, LinkedIn, Instagram, WhatsApp, Pinterest, Reddit, Substack, Messenger, Telegram, Quora, Twitch, Tumblr, Yelp, Periscope, Untappd, Fark, Meetup, Mixed…
Some dead, some very much alive, some general interest, some more specialized in function, but all of them with millions of users.
Then there’s the streaming services. We who hate signing for cable now sign up for 3, 4, 5 streaming services. Inertia was what was to make Netflix’s first-mover advantage unbreakable. Sadly, Disney+ didn’t get the message.
I just don’t see the inertia. It exists among individuals, of course, but the rise and fall of the names above in a mere 15-year period doesn’t reflect this inertia in the SM space.
These are valid points, but they apply regardless if there is a verification fee. I feel like if King wants to leave it is be because of Musk and not the $240/year.
Twitter is a bad business model. There’s a reason no one wanted to buy it. Having Musk and his inherent toxicity at the helm makes it worse. As @k9bfriender points out it can’t better until Musk clarifies his policies, but Twitter doesn’t work as a business in it’s current form.
King obviously gets something out of it too. He has a valid complaint, but it’s not the only perspective. It takes money to run the network. You can charge the people that post, the people that read, the sites that link, or some combination. If you charge the posters or the linkers you run the risk that they’ll stop and your service becomes irrelevant so instead everyone charges the readers (in the form of ads).
Personally I’m tired of being the product so I like the idea of generating revenue elsewhere.
Objection, assumes facts not in evidence.
Musk’s announced plan is light on details and does not clearly state it will replace verification with a fee. It could just as well be that verification follows the same current process to confirm the celebrity identity, and on top of that there’s a fee to keep the check mark once acquired.
Which doesn’t, I must take pains to add, make the plan any smarter. If you do the math on the number of verified profiles and the monthly fee, you get additional revenue of 15 to 20 million dollars a year. Which doesn’t even service the interest on the debt that was taken on to complete this acquisition.
I think King would feel the same if it were $2.40 a year or $24,000 a year, you are right it’s not about the amount of money, but who is asking for it and why.
I’d say that he creates more value for twitter than twitter provides value for him. He seems to think so as well. Maybe he’s wrong about that, but at the same time, he is in a position that it doesn’t really matter. If he never sells another book, he’s still going to be pretty well off.
I don’t mind being the product if the service provided is worth it. Youtube, yes. Twitter, no.
Not sure why Elon Musk says, “We need to pay the bills somehow!” As if that’s everyone’s problem. It’s not. He’s the dumbass who bought the company (and vastly overpaid). It’s his problem now.