Comment by gjulianm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gjulianm | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> Removing the tweet limit was a massive improvement

The essence of Twitter is precisely that the tweets are short, bite-sized thoughts. It's what drives interactions and engagement, removing the limit shows a lack of understanding of what makes Twitter Twitter. And I assume that most people aren't even using the limits even when they're paying Twitter blue, precisely because they know that it's not how you use Twitter.

> Showing view counts is also nice

I don't know if they have fixed this, but those view counts were fairly inaccurate.

> I don't like the login-walls and selling blue checkmarks, but I understand that the company was financially struggling prior to Elon.

The login walls and the blue checkmarks are again a massive mistake that is driving away brands and institutions from the site. Now their statements aren't visible to everyone, and people can't even be sure which one is the official account because the already existing symbol that said "this account is who they say they are" now just means "this account paid for Twitter".

> The essence of Twitter is precisely that the tweets are short, bite-sized thoughts

Yea hard disagree there. I spend more time and get more value and depth from reading Twitter threads than random tweets. Twitter threads however are an abomination UI-wise and annoying to write. Longer tweets make more sense.

In any case if you prefer shorter content that's fine, but there's nothing to be gained by restricting content type. Give people freedom and let the users decide what they find worthwhile.

It's funny to me that everytime I'd mention increasing the tweet length all the replies I'd get would be people telling me I'm wrong and that Twitter should keep the same smaller character limit. It's like vocal people on the internet fear change.

> massive mistake

Whether it's a mistake comes down to how much revenue Twitter makes in blue checkmark fees vs. how much revenue they lost from advertisers bailing. I'd need to see some hard numbers on that before being able to call it a mistake.

From a user perspective however I don't care at all. If anything making that more egalitarian instead of some mythical status symbol makes more sense.

For the record I say all of this as someone who hasn't purchased a blue checkmark.

> Give people freedom and let the users decide what they find worthwhile.

Well, as I already said what people find worthwhile is the shorter tweets, it's what generates more engagement. I do agree that one gets more value and depth from longer tweets, but Twitter isn't really a place for value and depth, but for shortness and content density. And also, while threads are not really the best UX, they have a very interesting advantage for Twitter: they allow users to engage and amplify the part they find the most interesting, and that drives more engagement than waiting for people to find the interesting part in a five paragraph-long tweet.

> Whether it's a mistake comes down to how much revenue Twitter makes in blue checkmark fees vs. how much revenue they lost from advertisers bailing. I'd need to see some hard numbers on that before being able to call it a mistake.

Well, we don't have the exact numbers but Elon Musk already said that ad revenue fell 50% and cash flow is negative. IIRC, Twitter was cash flow positive when he bought them if you didn't take into account some one-time expenses.

It seems to be contradicting his statement that the login-walls are going to be removed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com