You confidently state that they’ll be back if there are users. That’s not true. They’ll be back if they think their RoI will be better than alternatives. And it’s unclear if Twitter is capable of providing more value than YouTube, Meta, TikTok etc.
Of course others used it too, but the 'news cachet' meant a lot too, and helped convince others to use it too. I could easily see journalists fears helping to keep the ugly bastard going. Glad I never wasted my time on it.
People seem to think Twitter is this almighty power that everyone was begging to work with but actually it's the opposite. Twitter was out there hustling for any relationship they could get.
Discord is the closest thing to a successful subscription only social media business. Compare what Nitro offers to Twitter Blue.
Twitter Blue is like buying the “I am rich” app while Discord Nitro solves actual customer pain points.
Discord has about 10% of their active users paying for Nitro by my calculation based on available information. Twitter getting anywhere close to that level is not likely. Discord has been building their service around paid features for years.
Luckily, Twitter has a large and skilled engineering team capable of quickly rolling out valuable new features to entirely change their business model!
(Sidenote: has anyone ever heard of a generally stable ~10 year IPOed tech company pivoting so drastically? It’s insane)
Think about that: For 16 years Twitter management was so sclerotic that they were unable to perform basic improvements on targeting ads. Instead their focus was on trendy but money-losing projects like hexagonal profile pics for NFT users.
This is indicative of deep structural problems at Twitter, and won't be tolerated by Elon
This is a mobile app! You can get a coarse location, good enough to not show me an ad meant for an area 12000 km away. And yet, Twitter could not manage it.
That ISP wasted money by advertising on Twitter. Eventually other brands will realise this as well.
The RoI will be better than alternatives if Twitter ads are cheap enough. TikTok and possibly YouTube aren't profitable either, but they have inherently higher expenses. If Facebook and Instagram can be profitable, that means that there's a profitable company inside Twitter somewhere. I'm skeptical that Elon can achieve this, but that doesn'tean it's impossible.
Twitter had >5 billion in ad revenue. Facebook isnt the minimum threshold for good revenue.
It isn't a winner take all system. Meta might get the lions share, but that doesnt mean there is no room for competition.
Costs are adjusted to get similar ROI. Meta might get more clickthrough per add and command a higher price, but Twitter can compete with more adds for the same price, resulting in the same ROI.