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There’s a piece from the Verge that I think does a decent job describing the situation.
I think the author starts out strong. Saying Twitter has political problems, not tech problems, and Elon is now the King of Twitter are statements I fully agree with.
I think he’s wrong to assume that Twitter is still going to utilize an advertising based model. Twitter’s power user base seems a lot closer to Substack than Instagram or Facebook, in that it is preferred by the intelligentsia. The value of the platform is in these power users and the audiences of people who want to hear what they have to say. I think Twitter could probably also steal some business from OnlyFans, since the platform is already a major funnel for creators on that platform. A creator based model probably makes a lot more sense than an advertising model, since the platform is far less visual than, say, Instagram.
The cryptocurrency exchange Binance is reportedly one of the investors in Twitter, hoping to turn it into a cryptocurrency friendly platform and fulfill the promise of web3. Quite frankly I’m not sure how much crypto is needed to fulfill much of the promise of web3 (letting people own their own data, essentially), but I think in the long run letting users monetize themselves rather than relying on advertisers is a winning strategy for some platforms in the long term.
Running some quick numbers: Twitter has about 400M users, 200M are daily active users. Twitter’s revenue in 2021 was $5 billion.
Let’s say one million Twitter users (half of one percent) are popular enough that they can charge for the content they produce. Lets also assume an 80/20 revenue split between users and Twitter (the same as OnlyFans). If those one million users can generate an average of $2100/month in revenue (at $10/month this is only around 200 people), then that’s about $5 billion in annual revenue (1M users * $2100/month * 12 months/year * 20%).
Is this enough to justify Elon buying the company? No, but the point of the exercise is to demonstrate that given that it isn’t hard to replicate Twitter’s current revenue without an advertising model. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that a shift to a creator business model could unlock far greater revenue for the company and make the purchase both worthwhile.
The author goes on to say that Elon will have trouble dealing with governments in Germany and the Middle East…frankly, they need Twitter more than Twitter needs them. Social media is absolutely part of a government’s power projection tools, and Twitter is arguably the most important for verified government officials.
My predictions would be that if Twitter shifts to a creator business model rather than an advertising model, it will double its revenue by 2025. I’d also predict that while one or two countries may ban Twitter, most fears about governmental retribution against Twitter will turn out to be unwarranted.
I wouldn't have believed you a year ago, but keeping tabs on the Ukraine war has surprised me by how many analysts and OSInt people use Twitter as their primary method of communication. Long threads of a dozen+ tweets analyzing a particular topic are common. It's bizarre since Twitter is an unbelievably terrible website for this type of content, yet that's where it gets posted for some reason.
I didn't realize until recently that the most skilled twits doing longform make sure to write occasional "quotable" segments that draw people into the essay like a headline, but distributed throughout. So parts 12 and 44 of 87 can blow up individually and drive traffic and engagement the way a single longform piece can't. The absolute master of this is 0HPLovecraft, who has all of his tweets crosslinked in an elaborate index.
It's scary how good humans are at algorithmically optimizing things like that when there's social clout on the line.
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Advertisers are paying so much per click or 1000 impression that it's hard to think how they can diversify away from it . Maybe a 'premium tweets' option, like Substack.
If advertisers are willing to pay so much, maybe Elon can just ignore their demands to control what kind of content is allowed on the platform?
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Then why is Elon tweeting reassurances to advertisers?
Ads could remain a part of the business, have non subscribers get an ad supported peek at the content.
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I should clarify my original point about “content creator business model” doesn’t necessarily exclude advertisers. I meant more that the primary driver of revenue would be exclusive, paywalled content. A content creator centered business model can still have advertisers. For example, on Tik Tok, influencers show off the clothes they just bought, apply cosmetic products, or talk about what restaurants they’re trying. Twitter could utilize the paid subscription model for premium content, but have advertisers pay for placement in free, sponsored content. The two are not mutually exclusive
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Why wouldn’t he reassure advertisers, even if he plans to phase them out?
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