I feel like I must be living in an alternative reality from the Twitter deriders in this thread, I've had almost the exact opposite experience. I've made more friends and acquaintances on Twitter than any other social network. It's also <i>easily</i> the most intellectual social network. (If that sounds crazy, really compare it to the others. They're either not intellectual or [youtube] not really social.)<p>If you care deeply about something, you will find other people on Twitter. If you work in public, people will find you. Someone right now I met from Maine is currently drawing up the plans to teach me to timber frame a structure I just got approved. About 20 people I met from twitter have been over my house (for dinner, etc) at different times. Far more people read my work because of Twitter.<p>If you don't use it as a political mouthpiece it's incredible and there's nothing like it. And that's really up to the user.
I have a reasonable twitter following (between 5-10k followers) and have recently realized that I needed to remove the app from my phone and only occasionally check it from time to time on a laptop. I'm considering giving it up all together.<p>I've struggled a bit with this decisions since I've made a fair number of real friends through twitter (people I keep up with in real life after) and come across a lot of interesting books, papers etc.<p>But I've come to realize that despite its benefits, twitter is ultimately toxic to your mind. I've seen far too many people I care about slowly dissolve into a fever of dopamine fixes as they slowly contort their personality into a stream of memes and rants looking to gain followers.<p>I always tried to fight the urge to post stupid shit just to grow followers, but anything genuinely nuanced or thoughtful you post will have virtually zero engagement. This is fine in isolation, but it leads all conversations to eventually degrade in to a miasma of garbage thinking that is just a mix of groupthink, rage and memes.<p>The final straw for me was finding myself angry about the vague opinions of people I don't really care about at all. This same type of thinking is what got me to drop facebook entirely years ago.
My main issue with Twitter is that you follow people, but those people have different interests. So I may follow @JohnSmith because he’s a known dev in the JS community and tweets about JS, but he also tweets about his country’s politics, what he ate at lunch, and engage in heated debats about pineapple on pizza I don’t care about.<p>Twitter recently introduced topics, so that you can follow one topic that aggregates lots of tweets from various people.
This is not what I want: I’d like to follow @JohnSmith, but only for the JS content.<p>As someone who tweets, I’d like some sort of kafka-ish topic queues: I would post tweets about JS in the JS queue, and tweets about Italian food in that other queue, so that people could follow the queues they want. In the end I don’t tweet on either topic because I’m afraid I’ll deceive people who followed me for the other content.
I love Twitter and use it every day. Unlike many other sites, owned by tech-giants, I have a lot of goodwill for them and think if anyone can prove that social-media users can be paying customers, it's them.<p>It's just a bummer that Twitter Blue is not removing ads.<p>I assume they're not going ad-free because they don't want to cannibalise their ad-business. As in: You can't say your ads are so great and helpful and also offer a way to turn them off. That might decrease the value of their ads?<p>But it's also the reason I'm a bit on the fence here. I want to be part of the message that says: "Yes, I'm willing to pay for you Twitter!" but without removing ads (and frankly with a pretty bad value prop here) it's not an easy sell.
$3 for color themes and a reader mode? I don't like how it creates negative incentives to make regular twitter readable. I often see poeple here already complaining that threads are hard to read, and this could make it worse.<p>Edit: also quick undo. So they are monetizing the lack of basic features and their restrictions on clients. I don't really like the idea.
Twitter in 2006: Hey, we made this new infrastructure! You can consume it with any kind of client that you can imagine. We're really excited what kind of experiences you'll create!<p>Twitter in 2021: For just $2.99/mo, you can view the tweets in your algorithmic timeline in this new exclusive colour theme!
I would pay even more to never again see "recommended" tweets from people I don't follow. I use Twitter sort of like RSS, insofar as I want to be able to see everything the people I follow tweet. It amazes me that its not possible to coerce Twitter to do this in the settings. Instead I have to view users individually to see what they've tweeted since I last checked the app.
Twitter have picked the wrong customer IMO (readers).<p>They should be selling features to writers, not readers.<p>Writers/Broadcasters of content would pay a lot more than $2.99 a month for extra features to curate their feeds and followers, publish content automatically, weed out spam and trolls, schedule posts etc.
Interesting - this came just after I'd read through the HN piece on life after an internet mob attack.<p><a href="https://twitter.com/pasql/status/1366795510355537924" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/pasql/status/1366795510355537924</a><p><a href="https://pasquale.cool/internet-mob" rel="nofollow">https://pasquale.cool/internet-mob</a><p>I'm not on twitter, and poking my head into at least this corner seems pretty damn unhealthy.<p>In sequence a women accused this guy (falsely) of harassing her from some other random account (it's not clear why). Then another person said they overheard a conversation ages ago and stopped being friends with the guy - which turned out to not be true either. And it continued from there. Is there no consequence on twitter for this type of stuff?<p>Wonder if there is space for a twitter clone. Basically interesting ideas, sharing information. You'd be stuck with bad information, the response (instead of calling someone an idiot) would be to describe a different theory. No personal attacks of any kind.<p>HN seems to avoid a lot of this type of mob behavior around personal stuff and it's easier for non-involved people to engage then.
The HN comments are pretty unanimous on wanting to pay this amount to remove ads, not for more features. The problem with that is that an active US user is already producing more as revenue than that from ads. (40M US DAU, 500M US advertising revenue per quarter -> $4/month). Add to that the problem that for subscriptions they end up paying app store fees, subscriptions to remove ads just can't work. They'd need to price it at like $10/month, but it seems obvious few people would pay that.<p>This does feel somehow absurd, given how ineffective one would expect Twitter ads to be, but might be illustrative of the problems with paying to remove ads.
I had a Twitter account since late 2010 until a few months ago. I'm not much of a social media guy, but I felt that I had some sort of addiction during those years, an addiction that made me go back every few weeks and "leave" after feeling Twitter's toxicity.<p>Their system is smart at appealing to very specific personalities that just can't help being toxic. These people produce tons of controversial content and generate a lot of traffic.<p>However, the system also operates at a collective level by forming closed groups of users, that fall somewhere between gossipy cliques and low key cults. This is by far the scariest side of Twitter.
Something I would really pay for is the ability to manage one twitter handle from multiple accounts. That functionality is kinda there in TweetDeck, but it is hidden and I'm not sure it is supported anymore. In the API it works I think but no client supports it.<p>Ah and the ability to create an account anonymously without a phone, and maybe to pay with crypto. I understand why they don't want that, but if you post controversial stuff (IMO harmless progressive stuff, nothing agressive or hate-y, but enough to tick some people off who want to play culture wars) then you invite crazy people who try to dox or threaten you, and all kinds of legal threats. This is in West Europe, I can't imagine how it might be in acutally repressive states.<p>Unless you just post for fun about cats or food, social media turns out to be ungrateful work...
Features I'd want:<p>* No ads<p>* No suggested topics<p>* No suggested tweets, no people I might be interested in, no tweets someone I follow liked - just show me the people I follow and things they explicitly retweet<p>* The timeline preserves order<p>* Threads are grouped together and the entire thread is shown
I hope Mozilla is watching closely. If (and it's a big 'if') this proves successful, it's an important datapoint on the viability of paid-for utility services on the web.<p>No, Firefox isn't the same thing as Twitter. But if large numbers of people show willingness to pay $2.99/mo to change the app's theme, surely there's enough privacy-conscious people that would pay similarly for a browser that was commercially incentivised to protect privacy rather than monetise it.
Will there be some sort of marker in my Twitter profile to indicate I'm a Blue subscriber? Maybe a smaller lighter blue checkmark?<p>If anything, I would want it as a social signal rather than the features.
If all they are doing is allowing color changes and slight UI tweaks (and the undo button), why not take a page from online gaming's playbook and just sell cosmetics?<p>There is pretty much no limit to what could be sold as a cosmetic...add "flair" to the twitter bird (googly eyes, hats, etc) ($5.99 - $25.99)...make circle logo on your profile an octagon ($1.99), a triangle ($1.25)...with a blue border for an extra $.99....etc<p>I bet they'd make gobs more than a $2.99/mo.
Does the premium version include unlimited API-access so you can use any client?<p>I use a third party client with no ads and no content except tweets from people I follow because I can’t stand the official apps, but I have since learned that this possibility was limited to new users.<p>If Twitter cut my ability to use Tweetbot and then charged $3 for it, I’d subscribe immediately. So I suspect this is a service more people would pay for.
These people (social networks) are no longer solving any problems.<p>When they see users they don't see people in need as a service or product.<p>All they see is a Knob.<p>-> "Twist the user like this" Are we making more or less money?<p>-> If yes, turn further to that direction, else turn to the opposite direction.<p>Modern social media companies are no longer about offering effective social networking & communication services. Its all about the money now.
This is awesome. Not because I like Twitter. It’s pretty awful.<p>And I don’t hold out much hope that this will do anything to stop Twitter from boosting crazy garbage in order to maximize “engagement” and sell ads.<p>I’m excited because I think this will make it easier for competitors to come along and offer a better, more user-focused experience. You can do a lot with $3/user.<p>Full disclosure: I’m building a privacy focused social network that will be a paid subscription service. <a href="https://github.com/KombuchaPrivacy/circles-ios" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/KombuchaPrivacy/circles-ios</a>
The public’s reaction to this should be highly interesting to those who argue that sites should just have subscriptions instead of targeted ads. $3 is half the price of a single print issue of the Sunday New York Times, but already the story seems to be about Twitter creating second class citizens out of free users who can’t be $36-a-year elites.
I see all these comments about the trash and hate on Twitter, and I just wish that I could show them how I use it, and how wonderful a source of intellectual stimulation it can be.<p>My feed is <i>highly</i> curated.
1) I mute all political words. Nothing good comes from these discussions. I also mute things that just don't contribute to my peace of mind (a recent addition being "basecamp")<p>2) I block users who put out garbage content or try to stir things up<p>3) I use lists that I view on TweetDeck, so I can have lists based on my different interests (i.e. investing, entrepreneurs, interesting people, philosophy, etc)<p>Using this it becomes a dream feed. I get stimulating content, great discussions, and interesting ideas. On top of that I've actually made some solid friends from the network over the years, some in-person ones as well.
It's such a poor offering.<p>I'm not completely unopposed to Twitter having a subscription offering, but this isn't what I'd want from it at all.<p>(Number 1 would be unrestricted third party client before. The Twitter product team is awful and the UI basically unusable.)
Me: I'll pay for Twitter without ads and a true reverse-chron view of the accounts that I follow. An edit feature would be nice, too.<p>Twitter: Hey, check out Twitter Blue! Just $2.99 for reader view, colorful themes, and some other stuff you didn't ask for!
I already have hand curated my Twitter and make full use of the `lists` feature. I have roughly 30 lists for different categories. One for techpress news, another for world news, another for quotes & inspirational messages, etc<p>This attempt to serve curated feeds to people is too late. I've already put in the hard work of organizing my feeds to my liking, and this has the bonus of me not having to give Twitter money.<p>(I will happily be their 'product' in return for me having insight into my interests and being abreast of world affairs, and local news too).
if you don't want to wait till twitter blue , you can try <a href="https://twimark.io" rel="nofollow">https://twimark.io</a> , I have made this tool to bookmark tweets by categories and convert threads into labels. unfortunately the completion of my project and Twitter's announcement came at same time
To those saying that this is "$3/m for different app icon colors":<p>Based on their recent acquisitions of<p>- Revue (email newsletter service similar to Substack)<p>- Scroll (subscription that shares revenue with news sites, and removes ads on said sites)<p>I highly doubt Twitter Blue will solely get you different app/icon colors, they're likely to roll those services into Blue.<p>This is somewhat similar to the Amazon Prime approach, where you pay for a premium version of a site/service, and get access to a portfolio of services like Prime Video, Music, 2 day shipping, etc.<p>Their aim seems to be "Twitter Blue is to consumption of online news as Amazon Prime is to shopping/media".<p>The way I see it, a subscription model = moving away from a system that incentivizes a platform to maximize engagement/ad views, and instead incentivizes the platform to provide a positive experience, so users stay subscribed.
With the old 3rd party clients I enjoyed using a linear timeline with a synced timeline position via Tweet Marker [0]. I would pay for their subscription if they enabled this for their official clients + web app.<p>[0] <a href="https://tweetmarker.net/" rel="nofollow">https://tweetmarker.net/</a>
It was probably intended; I mistook the headline as a fast-track for 'Blue tick/checkmark' service. Regardless, it is not aimed at people like me, who are ambivalent about Twitter.<p>I haven't tweeted a single thing from my vintage account, and have no (zero) followers. It is basically a read-only account. Not only that, but I try not to follow any more than 100 accounts, which is still a lot! If curated properly, you can stumble upon interesting and thought-provoking interactions, interspersed with churlish and toxic behaviour -- some of which is fairly easy to identify, albeit hard to ignore. In general, it is theatre mixed with rapid insult delivery mechanism, which I find amusing, and prefer not to read into too much, and/or have any desire to interact with.
The chutzpah of adding an "undo" button as a monthly paid premium feature is just astounding to me.<p>I assume the next step is to make sure that as soon as you stop paying them the $3/month, all of your undone tweets are republished.
I have watched a ton of interviews with Jack and find him extremely inspirational and what he does (and has done) being truly amazing. Easily one of my favorite entrepreneurs to follow.<p>With Twitter, I get the sense he lost control of the company a long time ago because of a combo of monetization and culture.<p>So basically he helped build the greatest communication platform in the world and instead we get what Twitter is today.<p>This kind of weak Twitter Blue announcement, to me at least, just shows at what a lost the platform is for making money in a way that isn't engagement driven (aka, rewarding flaming-type behavior).
Give me:<p>- No ads<p>- No pushy prompts for topics, follows, "tweets I might like" or anything else unsolicited<p>- No tweets in my feed from people I don't follow<p>and I'll happily pay monthly. Doesn't look like they do any of this yet, but I'll keep an eye out.
I absolutely hate ads on Twitter and there's no way to block them on mobile. So I developed this obsession to block every ad account I see (which is about 4,300 accounts so far <a href="https://github.com/ahmetb/twitter-audit-log/blob/master/blocked_accounts.txt" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ahmetb/twitter-audit-log/blob/master/bloc...</a>). I am willing to pay $2 more and get ads blocked as well. Once you start blocking ads, the relevance goes down and it drives you crazier.
Twitter is such a garbage platform. If you browse the web page with your mobile it will eat up your battery pretty quick. Sometimes it rescrolls the page so you lose where you were. Or rerenders everything so you lose context completely. And because it renders quite slow it will misregister your thumb clicks on something else, like the back button. Or try to thumb click on a single line tweet, you will hit everything else. Pay for this? No, thanks.
The only FAANG company products that I am willing to pay any money for are Amazon's AWS and Google's Search. There is no way that Twitter can produce anything that is mildly interesting and their behaviour in the last 5 years was just pure trash. Some people argue that social media in this form is just damaging to society and should not exist. I am not going that far but paying for it would be really over the edge.
I like Twitter a lot. It's the only social media platform that has a lot of features for power users.<p>The trick is to regularly ban certain keywords associated with posts not relevant to you and to regularly block or mute users.<p>You can also use Lists to get rid of recommended tweets and create specific feeds for whatever use case you want. If you pin them, you can swipe left or right on your timeline to have a feed just for content related to the list.
What I need is a read-only Twitter. I can't keep myself from engaging with idiots and it always ends up a net negative. I wish I could take away the ability to react to things.<p>But so far this hasn't materialized and I feel better just not going to Twitter at all, even if that means missing out on some interesting content.
Twitter is the only social media I use. If they have to do this to make a profit then I have no issue with it. I'm surprised more large social media companies have not done this since there are so many outside services that will do things like this on their platforms.
I have no problem with subscription, but this feels like a really lazy attempt to monetize TBH, albeit being cheap.<p>Also note, HN folks are nothing like common users, and using their experience as indicator for public reception is a really bad model to say the least.
All will suffer from this eternal September unless you discriminate in terms of who you admit. People are totally unequal. Closed User Groups existed for a reason and that reason has been amplified many times over as internet adoption has grown.
I would pay Twitter to NOT use Twitter. Give me the option to lock myself out for a few hours/days so I can focus on work and withdraw from social media addiction. They can shove their colored icons. What is this?!
People should learn to engage their brain, maybe mull it over for a while before posting on twitter. It doesn't seem to happen though so they may as well charge people for the ability to undo their mistakes!
It seems to me that you can contribute a lot of the toxic behavior on twitter to the lack of nested comments.<p>How can you ever have a healthier discussion when you can only ever reply directly to a tweet?
Interesting reading the replies.<p>Twitter is the most valuable social network that I participate on.<p>Friends, ideas, connections all come from finding people talking about things that are interesting to you.
Undo Tweets? As in delete your tweet after you post it? Or it won't send the tweet for a minute or two in case you change your mind similar to Gmail Undo?
All I care about is being able to remove advertisements.<p>I don't care about any of these new features. Can just I pay $X.99 a month to not see ads on Twitter?
Big tech Co. deletes/censors half its users then scrambles to update to a freemium model to try and stay afloat.<p>That'll be $2.99 well-refused.
$3 as a one-time payment doesn't seem like it will meaningfully impact Twitter's earnings.<p>I wonder if they are doing this to increase the value of their ads shown to people willing to pay: if someone is willing to pay $3 for minor aesthetic improvements they are much more valuable advertising targets than the general population.
"Twitter Blue" is already a stupid name, after "YouTube Red" (which is stupid for the same reasons. At least YouTube tried it first, I guess) but it gets worse when the only feature I can see in that post is that you can select colours, other than the Twitter blue, making effectively not blue. At least YouTube Red keeps the colour (I guess, I have no idea)
Don't forget that 90cents of that goes to Apple, and 40cents to Governments as sales tax (on average, depending on the region).<p>Its a shame that the economics are so stacked against premium retail software instead of just slinging ads.
I guess this is their admission that you cannot monetize engagement if your community is highly toxic and mostly just produces shitstorms, lynchmobs, perpetually enraged morally superior idiots and professional victims.<p>I know that there's also good posts and good people on Twitter, but in my opinion it has been a net negative for society for quite a while now.<p>What I would enjoy would be a button to hide all the accounts that post more often than once per day. Because chances are the people who talk too much have no time to think about what they're saying.
I guess I need to update my angel investors pitch powerpoint to answer their "How do you intend to make money?" question.<p>"We'll charge users $3 a month to change the app colors and icon.".