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Comment by Zababa | Hacker News Reader

$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.

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.

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honestly, if they take out the ads and stopped selling my data, i would pay 3 USD without any issues.

That and an option to permanently opt out of their curation of my timeline. I just want to see the content of people I actually follow in a chronological fashion.

At the moment I‘am quiet happy using Tweetbot but most 3rd party clients are hampered due to API restrictions on Twitters side.

one way to force chronological is to add everyone you follow to a private list.

even on official clients, it's always chronological and no ads -- but it's not perfect.

I also use Tweetbot, and am experiencing very little of what everybody else is complaining about. I see only my timeline, and I use lists to make sure I don't miss anything from certain people I follow.

Tweetbot has had mute longer than Twitter has, and some, um, acquaintances I follow I've had muted for years. And I mute keywords if something is getting way too much play, like the electric F-150.

Will I pay Twitter $3/month? Sure, since I'd like to pay for what I use, just like I subscribe to the latest Tweetbot client. Will I use the Twitter client to get the benefits of Twitter Blue? Probably not.

All you have to do for that is to use Tweetdeck.

I use Tweetdeck extensively on macOS but on mobile even as a web app it just isn‘t nearly as polished as a native app like Tweetbot.

Same. I don't even use or like Twitter, but with an offer like that I totally would.

Your data is worth way more than $3

Doesn't twitter already have themes [0]? Or is it more than just the accent color?

[0] https://twitter.com/i/display

This is just the beginning. They could add more features right? Similar to how Amazon Prime began as free 2-day shipping and then added Prime Video and what not.

Free 2 day shipping had still enormous value to many. Further additions to value also indirectly resulted in prices increasing over time.

I can't think of a reason why any one is going to pay for this ? If they at least marked users as "Blue" like verified perhaps the social status would drive sales, right now there doesn't seem to be any incentive all.

> threads are hard to read

Twitter threads must die, they are an oxymoron and a fugly hack. Just bloody give people a "gist.twitter.io" for long form, or something like that, for goodness' sake.

The "point" or benefit of a twitter thread as opposed to straightforward longform is that each tweet (sentence or paragraph) can stand alone (in terms of liked and retweet circulation) as well as being a part of a broader piece.

"Can" or rather "could", but never really does in practice. Take away the thread, and 99.99% of mid-thread tweets lose all meaning. It just makes things awkward for the sake of it.

It's funny, I mean, you're not wrong, but there was a period when I wrote a lot of twitter threads, and I enjoyed the challenge of making each tweet stand alone. I think it made me a better writer. But yes, many don't take advantage of this.

Well, these mid-thread tweets can still be taken out of context and used to create sh*tstorms.

I don't completely disagree but the point is mostly two-fold (which are related to your point).

1. Discoverability and engagement.

2. A tweet thread tends to be more conversational than a blog post and therefore can be more off the cuff (and therefore easier).

Some people here will probably remember twitlonger, which wasn't that great. That or posting screenshots of text. I think threads, the idea, are fine; but the implementation is not good. I don't understand why, when you load a tweet in a thread that's not too long (< 50 tweets), Twitter refuses to just show the whole threads and makes you click "show more" every 5 tweets. That's a really bad UX.

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