Twitter Is Shrinking: Web Visits Down 7.3%, App Usage Dropping | Hacker News Reader

Twitter Is Shrinking: Web Visits Down 7.3%, App Usage Dropping

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44 pointsCharlesW34 comments

More information is needed as this could be a very good thing.

Lots of twitter traffic is bots and rage posting/scrolling. For Twitter to improve it's usage needs to decrease and be higher quality.

People shouldn't scream at each other. And people shouldn't watch people scream.

> People shouldn't scream at each other. And people shouldn't watch people scream.

There are decent social networks with this property, like HN (to an extent). Twitter is famously not that. Why would purchasing Twitter and then driving off it's distinctive user base make economic sense?

> Why would purchasing Twitter and then driving off it's distinctive user base make economic sense?

Why try to make a service less full of jerks? One of the main reasons I don’t use Twitter is because of the vitriol. I might consider using it if they remove the 5% of loud jerks. I suppose there is some way to make money without people screaming and being rude.

In contrast, I really like that Twitter is the one place where very rich and very powerful people can be told to their faces they're silly, stupid, and wrong by a large number of people.

Most proposals to make Twitter more polite would eliminate this property.

But Twitter isn't driving off the jerks. If anything, Musk's policy of unbanning right-wing accounts on principle and undermining people's filters in order to force content they don't want into their feeds has caused the platform to turn far more hostile since he took over. Everything he's doing seems to be the exact opposite of what one would do if one wanted Twitter to be a more polite and civil community.

A lot of academics, industry experts and celebrities were accessible on Twitter.

A conspiratorial viewpoint is deplatforming the first two groups. It's not a plan to make Twitter succeed.

Only what I've heard, I don't use Twitter.

Anecdotally I’ve actually noticed comments on Twitter being worse in quality than before the acquisition.

Ohh come on..Lord Elon, the saviour has also reduced the headcount by 80%... Just imgaine the profitability even after 7.3% dip... Look at the positive side, at least he doesn't want to default on his loan, which he took from banks for this deal. Now is the time to milk the bird, go Elon.. remove blue-ticks...

Traffic is down 7.3%, not revenue. Revenue... is apparently 89% down:

https://www.thewrap.com/twitter-ad-revenue-plunges-elon-musk...

And he's not paying rent or bills and being sued about it, so... uhmm yeah, it seems like he's defaulting on many things.

Ad revenue being down certainly increases the quality of content though.

I don't think twitter will care too much.

Their focus is on how to monetize and I think I've got it.

Musk has admitted buying some people bluetick. Why stop at him? I predict he will let anyone do it. Soon how far in advance your bluetick is paid up will be as important as your follower count.

And it will all go into Twitters pocket.

Estimates from February had around 300,000 users or about $28m of revenue per year [0]. The acquisition costs alone added $1bn to Twitter's expenses. Maybe those numbers have improved a little since February, but they'll have to improve a lot to bring Twitter into the black. And asking people for $96/yr (or $132 on iOS) isn't going to be easy when usage is going down and the content producers are leaving. For a comparison, in 2021 Twitter made net revenue of $1.57bn, mostly from advertising.

[0] https://en.as.com/latest_news/how-many-people-have-subscribe...

Ultimately, they need to monetize.

This is just my prediction of how they will do it. And it capitalizes on the same processes as Twitch, YouTube, etc.

You will be able to pay one offs for a tweet you like, like Reddit gold. Or generally buy them a month.

If 100 of Kim K's 75million followers buy her a single month thats over 8 years of bluetick for her.

It will have many many effects, but it would also reduce spam as follower count and blue tick duration become markers of authenticity. And if you spam and your account is blocked you would lose all that funding.

Musk just removed the legacy verification mark. This resulted in a net increase of 28 newly paying users who previously had legacy verification. That's a pathetic conversion rate. (In total 5% of legacy blue checks have purchased verification).

https://twitter.com/travisbrown/status/1649433999914270722

Having a blue check mark is an embarrassment now tho so I don’t think it will turn out like that.

Hah, that's an interesting way to sell a product: "buy this to embarrass people you don't like!". So groups of people who don't like Stephen King' or LeBron James' stances on Twitter could continuously keep their accounts ticked blue, to annoy them...

So, Elon would be providing a way to harass people, I suppose until they think the harassment isn't worth the megaphone-reach that their account has accrued (which is worth less and less the more dickish the CEO becomes).

False endorsement is definitely annoying, yes. It's also illegal.

To go down the rabbit hole that the GP started (about letting people for other people's blue checkmarks), the false endorsement bit can be easily solved by changing the wording of the blue checkmark to be like Reddit Gold: it's something that can be "awarded" to you. Obviously it wouldn't fix how toxic the place is, but I think if the goal is to get out of being sued, it would be enough.

> the false endorsement bit can be easily solved by changing the wording of the blue checkmark to be like Reddit Gold: it's something that can be "awarded" to you.

Would changing that text actually be enough? On its face it would still appear to other users as if the people Musk "sponsored" are real subscribers. How many people are going to (know to) click through to those checkmarked users' profiles, click on the blue checkmarks, and discover that bit of information? Especially if the number of sponsored users are a handful out of tens of thousands checkmarked users, meaning that even a person who was in the know would probably be disincentivized from checking every checkmark they saw.

It can definitely be solved. But right now that wording represents "false endorsement" and people are already confused about it and telling those affected that "they've lied" and what not.

It can also be solved by the people who don’t want blue ticks stuck on their account involuntarily simply joining the exodus of people departing Twitter.

Speak for yourself. I pay for Blue and I'm not embarrassed about it. I would rather pay for a service that I like and see fewer ads; maybe someday there will be an option to get rid of all the ads?

> Speak for yourself

The "badge of shame" effect was so immediate and over prevalent - and still is today - that Elon rush ordered a feature to let users hide it.

Shouldn't you be embarrassed, though? It's like tattooing "I'm an Elon fanboy" on your forehead.

Maybe they just like the feature.

I mean you don't see all the Tesla owners giving up their cars. And a decent percentage of Tesla buyers were definitely Elon fanboys. One of the nice parts of Elon's recent adventures is that my friends with Tesla share far fewer Elon posts.

But some people bought and buy a Tesla because they just like the car and it has nothing to do with Musk. That's perfectly fine (and I think it's fine to be a fanboy too, who cares).

Elon Musk is a complex person, like any other human being. Many of his achievements are fantastic and I cheer them on appropriately. When I think he gets something wrong, I don't hesitate to say so.

Allow me to illustrate with an example from a week ago. I wrote this in reply to Elon's tweet about "life imprisonment for sterilizing children" (I'm trans, and very open about it since starting my transition six months ago):

"Should I have gone to prison for life when I was 12 and I tried to sterilize myself with a rubber band? I suffered terribly for three decades because of the testosterone puberty I went through and never wanted."

https://twitter.com/realTaraHarris/status/164683309263877734...

I try my best to use Twitter to support other trans women. My DMs are open in order to make myself more available, especially to people that are afraid to transition and/or mired in circumstances that make it difficult to do so (such as living in a red state and/or with an unsupportive home environment.)

I have also spent the past several months supporting and amplifying communists, socialists and anarchists on Twitter whenever possible, even though my own personal viewpoint differs somewhat from each of those groups. I do this because I think everyone brings something to the table, and the continued marginalization of the true left in the United States is very dangerous as we enter this new period of war and economic instability.

Let me know which one of us should be embarrassed.

5% of legacy blue checks have purchased verification. Looks like HN users aren't representative.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35661693

Twitter doesn't care, and ultimately you would not have control over someone else buying you bluetick. Nor would that person be eligible for a refund should you deactivate your account.

Twitter used to monetize, they just had a bunch of organizational bloat. They then threw the baby out with the bath water by causing all the advertisers to flee when they did the organizational cuts.

It is going to be a much more difficult road for them to get in the black than it would have to make decisions in a rational, well thought out way.

What they are actually doing along these lines is trying to sell “give your affiliates blue ticks” as part of Twitter Verified Organizations (which apparently you pay a publicly unspecified size-based amount for up-front when you apply, but if Twitter decides to reject your application there is no refund.)

> Musk has admitted buying some people bluetick.

People who specifically said they did not want and would not pay for it; he’s basically forcing them to be involuntary endorsers of Blue via the mark on their account.

These days, I use Twitter more than ever. I pay for Blue, and the only thing I'd like to see is editable replies and a way to make sure I don't see political ads.

I use to track the Musk circus, but I'm already getting tired of it. What is Twitter to you?

Why do people really think this is about the money?

I believe this is one of zhe smartest things he could‘ve done for the future of twitter.

Many others will follow or be gone.

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