Elon Musk wants you to let’s pay 8 dollars a month for using Twitter. If until now we had a mainly free social network, now they want to progressively transform it into a freemium model, where only those who pay the subscription will have access to the full experience.
A paywall for Twitter. Musk’s plans to change Twitter are so radical that has even been raised put the entire social network behind a paywall. It is not clear that this is going to be the fate of Twitter, but it does show that the proposed strategy involves approaching a payment model, similar to Spotify. If you pay you have the full experience, if you don’t pay you will receive more advertising and you will be at the mercy of the algorithm.
The arrival of Twitter Blue is being a disaster. Musk’s first change has been the Twitter Blue implementation, the new subscription of 8 dollars per month that allows any user to have the blue verification tick. But it’s being chaos.
Emails were sent informing that Twitter Blue was already available, but it was not. Those who signed up basically what they received in return was the same Twitter Blue that was already before.
Who is willing to pay 8 dollars a month?. According to reports PlatformerTwitter has only about 100,000 paying subscribers. A tiny amount compared to more than 255 million active users. Musk explains that Twitter usage is at an all-time high, but it’s not clear that many of these users are willing to pay $8 a month. In fact, those who already pay have seen how their subscription has cost almost twice as much, for practically the same functions.
Playing with advertising. Twitter faces the classic balance between advertising and the payment model. The more people pay, the less advertising is needed. One of the advantages of Twitter Blue that has been raised is to reduce advertising by half. However, estimates suggest that Twitter would lose about 6 dollars per month per user with this change. That is, Twitter could even lose money if it made this move.
If you cannot improve the service to those who pay, it worsens the base experience. Getting premium features that Twitter users are willing to pay for is no easy task. Options have been raised such as a video only paywallbut all are ideas at the moment.
The solution that is gaining more strength seems to be that those who do not pay have a lower experience. That is, with more advertising and with an algorithm that limits the visibility of those who do not pay.
A Twitter full of verified. “You will have to scroll very far to see unverified users”, explained Elon Musk. The idea is simple: the algorithm will enhance the visibility of those who pay. This will make our timeline fill with tweets from verified people. It’s Musk’s “solution” to force the most active users to jump through subscription hoops. It is an idea that may have a future if we take into account the influence of Twitter in certain sectors, but it will create a powerful division between users that can change the functioning of this social network from top to bottom.
Image | kevin krejci
We would love to say thanks to the writer of this article for this incredible content
Musk proposes a two-speed Twitter: if you don’t pay, you will have less visibility and a worse experience