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Comment by kordless | Hacker News Reader

There are exactly zero times I wished I could buy something from a Tweet with a button. Given that limited observation of buyer behavior, and knowing full well Twitter wishes to make profit, I'm assuming these buttons will be forced into my public stream somewhere, somehow. Some people on here think these buttons will be placed there by Twitter via ads, but I have another idea:

Provide a micropayment channel program where, when I retweet a purchase button, I get part of the revenue share. Use cryptocurrencies to implement the feature. See @tipdoge for reference.

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Yes, an affiliate marketing scheme like this would have a big impact

as well at turn the social network into a cesspool.

Social networks are already messy. I'd stop short of calling them cesspools, however. Software makes content better. Better software makes content I don't know I want more available to me.

If something isn't interesting, or doesn't earn anyone money, people won't retweet it.

Fortunately for you, twitter is now forcing tweets into your timeline!

I'd be pretty likely to buy music off Twitter if it was released there exclusively. Come to think of it, I'd be highly likely to buy one-off items from Etsy, Gumroad, and Amazon through my Twitter stream as well.

You had everyone until "use cryptocurrencies".

No, I had YOU until I said cryptocurrencies. Everyone else, well, they speak for themselves.

When I saw a band in the list of test clients, it sort of made sense. I wouldn't buy clothes, but spend $1 to get this soundboard boot of a song from concert X? I'd probably click that.

And now that I think of it, also books and concert tickets. One thing that frustrates me endlessly about fiction authors is they don't curate mailing lists. For whatever reason -- and they must have tested it -- amazon does not do a good job of informing you of new releases from authors you've purchased. I have a handful of authors I like enough that I buy everything they write. The smarter ones curate email lists to help me do that, but I think twitter often serves that purpose for authors and bands. So if they could sell me concert tickets or their new releases inline I may well buy.

> There are exactly zero times I wished I could buy something from a Tweet with a button.

But there are a huge number of times when a corporation has wished it could make it super easy for you to make a snap purchasing decision.

You are correct sir.

This is the equivalent of a an "impulse" rack of merch at the checkout line at the grocery store or a gas station.

All they need are enough people (less than 5% I'd assume) to use it to become commonplace in your feeds. I knew it eventually come to this.

What if they were tickets to something:

"Announcing super concert 2,000 is open for ticket purchases! Click here now to get your!!! ONLY 5,000 slots available!"

You sound exactly like their target market, too! /s

I'm going to guess you don't use the 'one-click buy' button on Amazon either?

Amazon does use more than 140 characters to present a product.

And often has reviews on the same page.

The reviews are the key. I always jump straight to the reviews. Half the time I never read the item description.

You can always add a link to the tweet for more details.

And then you can buy from the page with the details. Forcing you to go back to the twit to buy would be a bad idea.

Embedding the buy button wired up to your twitter account might not be so awful?

Amazon has an established reputation as a low-priced retailer, and stakes its reputation on that. Twitter seems to intend this as more of an ease-of-purchase kind of feature. My expectation is that there is little to no incentive for Twitter to be pricing these products competitively.

Not everyone comparison shops for all products. Many people are happy paying a standard price for certain goods, without hesitation. For example, expecting to pay $10-15 for a t-shirt is common, as is paying $1 for a song. For these sorts of purchases, reducing the friction from discovery to purchase is pretty important. Suffice to say, I probably wont buy a car or a vacuum cleaner on Twitter.

I buy things off Amazon because I go there to buy things. So yes, I guess I use that button. :)

That's a terrible comparison. Amazon is a retailer, Twitter is not. Amazon provides a massive amount of helpful information to buyers. Twitter provides almost none. For starters.

For people with significant followings, Twitter is a marketing platform. This might enable an affiliate (or self publication) model to work well on Twitter.

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