Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaw12ay | Hacker News Reader

Twitter can make money, all it has to do is reduce its operational costs first. Then launch new products to grow. Twitter isn't going to become the new ad-sense or Facebook if it isn't a platform at first place. And you don't become a platform if your product isn't relevant to a lot of people.

People use Google for search. People use Facebook to connect with friends and family. Who needs a Twitter account aside from journalists and attention-seekers? my grand mother doesn't need a twitter account. Nobody cares about her cooking a chicken or planting cucumbers in the garden BUT her closest relatives. And there is already Facebook for that.

View on HN

What twitter SHOULD have done, and should probably re-consider, is leave the API open, but charge a fee to utilize it at scale. Let startups come up with creative new uses for your platform, and if they get traction - acquire them. You print money and find an easy target for growth.

Twitter's problem is their continued refusal to recognize themselves as a platform. It's probably too late at this point, but I don't think they have anything to lose.

Similar to aws? micro-pricing, or some free level? paying, say, 1c per 100 tweets for my app(s) would probably be doable. Or perhaps giving more metrics for paid accounts, or prioritized delivery?

> Who needs a Twitter account aside from journalists and attention-seekers?

Twitter is what you curate it to be. To me, Twitter is kind of the publishing platform Linked In was trying to build. Smart people posting interesting links (to their posts or others) and people discussing.

However since Twitter is what you make Twitter to be, garbage in garbage out. I quit Twitter for about 2 years but then unfollowed every account and started fresh. Now I use it all the time, way more than Facebook, etc.

I use Twitter as a sort of "Facebook writ small".

At the moment, and since just after I quit Facebook, Twitter has worked for me regarding how I communicate and consume over such "live feed" social media.

i would totally pay a few dollars a month for an ad free experience on twitter

Honestly, I was going to say that didn't square with their valuation per user, but I hadn't realized that it was less than $50/active user now. At $3.95/mo it appears to make sense at their current valuation / profit margin (admittedly very back of envelope)

edit: before anyone notes it, I'm just thinking about offering it and the relative value of each on a per user basis vs ads. Yes, it would churn their userbase out of existence.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com