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Comment by klyrs | Hacker News Reader

Raise the price and drop the features, makes sense to me. Next step, the MMO route: sell different-color flair for your account so everybody can tell how much you spend per month on Twitter. Then, let people filter by tier: Twitter Blue can block Twitter Blue and no-check users; Twitter Red cannot be blocked except by Red and above... on up to Twitter Diamond who can't be blocked by anybody but other $100k/mo users. Sure, people will hate it, but will they pay?

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The 90s sitcom Frasier parodied this mentality to hilarious effect. Frasier and his brother Niles got memberships to an exclusive spa and then progressively kept discovering that there were more and more exclusive membership levels to which they promptly upgraded. Then they see one last non-descript door leading from the diamond room. Niles opens it to an astonishingly bright white light, they step into the light and their eyes adjust just as the door closes and locks behind them, and they realize they are in the back alley with the smelly garbage.

More recently, in an episode of Modern Family, Jay keeps discovering there are more floors on the hotels he's staying in, where he thinks he's on the most exclusive top floor only to be denied some service or other which is reserved for the tier on the floor above.

This is somewhat similar to how Reddit currently works funnily enough

On reddit the users with he most power to abuse are the poorest (unpaid moderators). So it's really more the opposite.

There's lots of paid moderators, just not by reddit.

chariot race factions like in the byzantine empire that created many a riot were called blues and greens. would be funny to re-create.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/blue-versus-green-roc...

Well we already have antagonistic political factions and a common vernacular shorthand referring to them by a pair of colors so idk how far we have to go to recreate anything really.

I support your cynicism here but it did make me curious, has “whale economics / micro transactions” been tried on a non gaming platform?

Airlines? Politicians? I think it was credit cards who started (or at least popularized) the Silver/Gold crap, but I'm unsure.

And... I'm not sure that I'm being cynical here. I think I'm extrapolating on a pretty solid trend in economics. I'd like to think that the $100k value I tossed out is unrealistic, but I've been surprised before (looking at you, Diablo)

First class twitter blue? For everyone else’s the first 140 characters are free, then .1 doge per character, unless you forget to add your characters at the beginning in which case you can add them in the edit for free, but have to collect them at baggage claim (the metaphor breaks down)

I mean some would call it a game but Tinder/Match does this. They have subscriptions starting at $10 with some bonus features but there are also pre-set options for subscriptions/boosts that go up to $100 so I'm assuming those whales are using a lot.

It's obviously not too dissimilar from Twitter. I bet some people get a very similar rush from a match as they do from a shared tweet.

I imagine it's still mostly guys who buy the super futures but there's also a large class of OF models, aspiring influencers, etc. who use Tinder features because it is good value for their goals. I imagine people who use Twitter for clicks/attention would be in same spot.

Fast passes at amusement parks, airlines and online dating like other comments mention, concert tickets, hell tickets for anything. Court side seats are as much about being close to the action as being seen by others which is a similar vein of vanity as a blue check.

None of those are whale economics. Just premium offerings.

Is the difference where whales make up the majority of revenue vs free or near free users?

The difference is that "whale economic" implies some users are paying huge huge amount of money. Like, over thousands of dollars in month in case of computer games. That sort of thing.

And they're paying it through microtransactions. Most populations follow a power distribution like that, not just gaming. The most loyal customers spend way more than the tail. They don't spend it all at once usually, it's over many transactions. But they are still the group you target. This phenomenon is true in all lines of business not just gaming, and it's due to loyal customers who keep coming back (regardless whether it's a premium purchase or not), not single large ticket purchases...

Sports have super fans that come to every game Airlines have business travelers Etc etc.

https://www.liveabout.com/what-is-a-whale-2917364

^ This term does not come from gaming.

Suites in sports arenas (edit: also frequently used for large concerts) would seem to qualify as whale economics.

> online dating

I can just imagine.

"For $10/month, you can message with any profile on DatingSimulator dot com, and for only $25/month we will highlight which profiles are of humans instead of bots." (but you can still message the bots, if you want)

Gaming did not invent the whale.

Accounts with blue check marks are some of the worst offenders when it comes to misinformation on Twitter, because that status gives additional legitimacy to whatever they say (compared to a random bot). Charging them $20 or whatever else isn't going to change anything.

Charge $5 a month to common users to experience twitter with all the blue check people filtered out.

  Now the Star-Belly Sneeches
  Had bellies with stars
  But the Plain-Belly Sneeches
  Had none upon thars...

Given how Twitter's new owner has been re-tweeting political conspiracies, I'm not sure 'reduce misinformation on Twitter' is anywhere on his list of priorities.

Misinformation like that the Biden laptop is a Russian conspiracy?

Well, it's possible he may be inclined to reduce the amount of misinformation that harms his and his friends' political ambitions.

(To be fair, though, it's not clear how Hunter Biden has anything to do with anything, and why anyone is still talking about him, because last I checked, unlike another royal family, Joe did not fill the cabinet with his relatives...)

Because there are allegations that he was peddling access to his father while his father was VP which may be backed up by emails on said laptop. Now that it's confirmed as genuine, an investigation needs to be done. We would demand nothing less if this were the previous president.

> We would demand nothing less if this were the previous president.

Actually, 'we' have been demanding a lot less from the previous one.

But either way, the conspiracy theory of the day that ElMu retweeted has nothing to do with any laptops.

You sure about that? From what I remember the smoking gun email that said "10% for the big guy" is from 2017. Notably not when Joe Biden was in office.

Elon is a blue check so his point is still correct.

You act like that's a really bad thing but tbh requiring payment for verification seems to me one of the easiest ways to combat misinformation. Suddenly you have an actual source of money tied to an actual person that ties someone to their actual account. Meanwhile it can be assumed that anyone that doesn't verify is likely pushing false information. Seems like it is the easiest way possible to combat the misinformation not by becoming some sort of arbiter of truth but merely making it harder for people to push information out anonymously in the first place.

> Meanwhile it can be assumed that anyone that doesn't verify is likely pushing false information.

Or they're in a region where $20 is a significant portion of their monthly income. Of course, their government will be able to afford verification.

That's a feature, not a bug when it comes to misinformation since loads of out comes from outside the US/West

I doubt most of it comes from poor people outside the west.

It depends on if russia counts as the west or east (to me it's both), but a ton of misinformation comes from there. Second place is probably china.

>Seems like it is the easiest way possible to combat the misinformation not by becoming some sort of arbiter of truth but merely making it harder for people to push information out anonymously in the first place.

People with blue checks, who have had their identities verified and aren't anonymous, already stretch the truth and put out misinformation. Adding a $20/month fee isn't going to change that. $20/month is worth it for many people who want to bend the truth for their own personal gain, whatever that may be. I really don't understand how charging people for a blue check next to their name somehow also "combats misinformation".

> You act like that's a really bad thing

Did I? I thought I was spitballing for how twitter might be able to turn a profit. And, get this, without selling ads...

Poe's law strikes again.

Isn't the "verified" check mark meant to indicate that the account doing the tweeting is the famous or notable person they claim they are? In my opinion, Twitter puts the verified check mark on accounts as an aid to help other Twitter readers; to help ensure they are reading the person they intended to follow.

While paying for the check mark is certainly a valid way to earn money it won't really serve the same purpose. Many notable accounts may choose not to buy in, accounts that are not notable may choose to buy in, adding to the confusion.

There's nothing preventing them from adding more kinds of checkmarks.

> While paying for the check mark is certainly a valid way to earn money it won't really serve the same purpose. Many notable accounts may choose not to buy in, accounts that are not notable may choose to buy in, adding to the confusion.

In the current existing system, famous people also have to go a verification process when they are invited or approved to be verified. Paying for a checkmark would presumably include the same verification that takes place in the current system.

> In the current existing system, famous people also have to go a verification process when they are invited or approved to be verified. Paying for a checkmark would presumably include the same verification that takes place in the current system.

It will presumably include some verification process, but the current process is relatively small volume (compared to what Musk wants for the new premium accounts with verification, which he seems to want to be the norm for active, non-trivial-reach users) and I would imagine doesn’t scale well, so he probably wants a more streamlined, scalable identity verification system like what EdX does for verified certificates.

> Isn't the "verified" check mark meant to indicate that the account doing the tweeting is the famous or notable person they claim they are?

I don't think so. There are blue check accounts that get purchased, and then have the name and image replaced with that of a famous person to sell scams. Check the replies under any real Musk tweet.

> Isn’t the “verified” check mark meant to indicate that the account doing the tweeting is the famous or notable person they claim they are?

That is what it was, in theory. There are some issues in practice, and in any case Musk has a very different vision of what it is for (the user facing reason seems to be largely “paying for positioning in the algorithm”.)

EDIT: In addition to algorithmic prioritization, you also get a 50% reduction in ads and the ability to post “long video and audio”, per Elon’s recent announcements.

I have to assume this is satirical. It seems to rest on the idea that people with money don’t spread misinformation, which I don’t think it true.

> Suddenly you have an actual source of money tied to an actual person that ties someone to their actual account.

Did that stop Alex Jones from slandering the victims of Sandy Hook?

Last time I checked, Alex Jones's web traffic increased, because that slander / misinformation made him more money. People wanted that misinformation badly.

His long term outlook is very poor though. Judgements will likely be reduced (if Jones co-operates with the court this time) but he'll be lucky to have a home when everything is over.

Perhaps Alex Jones is a bad example then.

Does Elon Musk's blue checkmark stop him from posting misinformation on say... the number of bots on Twitter and whether or not they'd allow him to not buy Twitter over that argument?

Or TSLA going private for $420?

--------

These online personalities have proven that they don't care one tiny bit about telling the truth, even if they have money and their name attached to their accounts

> You act like that’s a really bad thing but tbh requiring payment for verification seems to me one of the easiest ways to combat misinformation.

Sure, telling big accounts that are the major source of content bringing people to the platform that you view their presence as a headache that you need compensated extra for rather than a welcome thing that you are willing to do costly work to make secure is a great way to shrink the platform for all uses, including misinformation.

Their content is basically advertising their brand to their fans though. Stephen King can announce a book tour or new title and reach millions of fans for a meager 20 bucks a month. On the flip side, I personally don't need to have celebrities on the platform to see the value. When Twitter started there were no celebrities on there and they only got involved once it took off because it is a cost effective way of reaching fans.

> When Twitter started there were no celebrities on there

When Twitter started its unique selling point was posting & reading via SMS, and it had essentially no competitors. The market Twitter is in now is radically different.

> Stephen King can announce a book tour or new title and reach millions of fans for a meager 20 bucks a month.

The current planned price for the algorithmic juicing plus reduced ads plus verification that merges and replaces the existing verified program and Blue premium subscription is $8/mo in the US, adjusted by PPP in other countries.

People push misinformation under their real name all the time. Why anyone would expect this to change that, I don't know.

Meanwhile, plenty of people will farm out verification of accounts for purposes where paying the verification fee for an illusion of authority will be worth it for a lot of uses.

What is MMO here?

Massive Multiplayer Online... something?

It's shorthand for massive multiplayer online roleplaying game (mmorpg).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_g...

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