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newsclues

Charge money to join.

Keep the riff raff out and have users real identities linked to payments.

I’d rejoin Twitter if it cost $5-10 per year

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> have users real identities linked to payments

I will never use a social media platform that requires me to link my IRL identity. It's DoA for me.

Facebook is hardly DOA.

I don't use Facebook. Edited the GP to clarify that any platform that requires tying my IRL ID to it is DoA for me.

Just because it’s doa for you, doesn’t mean others will feel the same.

Something Awful forums did this. Toxic users are happy to get banned and then pay another $10 to keep being toxic.

The tactic was highly successful on SA, but it can only do so much. Having a cover charge keeps out lazy spammers, children, and casual vandals/trolls pretty well. Unfortunately, it doesn't do anything to keep out those who are determined to be disruptive and have anything resembling real income. Even with 5 bans a month, $50 is trivial to any adult with a job if they really, really want to stay and cause havoc.

More importantly it's nothing to billion dollar corporations or governments. Money should not equal speech. Instead I think that firstly we need a "proof of personhood", a way to identify real individual users and distinguish them from bots and shills that run multiple accounts. As it is now the system can be easily gamed which works great for those who have plenty of resources. Genuine users get the short end of the stick.

That would make it a ghost town.

Social media requires that the people you are interested in are there for it to have any value. Not enough of my friends are going to be willing to join facebook for >0 usd, which means I wouldn't be willing to join it either.

Twitter can maybe be saved here, but they would a lot smaller.

Sadly 10 usd/year isn't enough to keep out the riff raff, in fact it would probably entice people to see it as an investment meaning we would get ever more crap from influencers, "thought" leaders, etc.

So, a social media site for the 0.1% of people in the world who'd be willing to pay for it.

Count me out.

Twitter isn't Twitter without the wide range of people it attracts, for better or worse.

I really doubt $5-10 / year would be sufficient to replace their ad revenue.

From what I remember from Facebook SEC filings, they make on the order of $50-100 per US user per year.

And it would be promptly irrelevant because someone would just make "free twitter" and dominate the market again.

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