Here’s Elon’s Product Vision for Twitter. Or at least what it should be.
First things first, I’m by no means a Musk fanboy — quite the opposite.
And what he’s currently doing at Twitter can be described as wrecking havoc. Running that thing that we love in the ground. In such a record speed that some folks assume he must be doing it on purpose. I won’t go too deep into this, others chronicled the painful way Twitter has been on.*
Even folks who support his draconian micromanagement leadership style have to see that this overshadows what he has in mind for Twitter the product. That’s a shame.
From all the bits and pieces that get thrown around, I think I was able to form a cohesive product vision that focusses on keeping the ship afloat.
About Advertising
Mkbhd is one of the proponents of an ad-driven future of Twitter. Citing the known facts that a) people don’t like to pay for not physical stuff on the internet and b) for advertising to make sense, it needs to address the broadest possible market.
I’m not disputing that, it makes total sense for a social network to keep the barriers of entry as low as possible by making it free to use.
What I am increasingly questioning is if Twitter should be seen as a social network / social media. It fits under the common definition, but maybe we need a new dichotomy:
For Messaging interactions every one of your family and friends needs to be there to make the group chat useful.
For Entertainment or let’s say Information-based interactions you don’t need Aunt Anna or your neighbor. What you are interested in are the top 10 individuals in the world in the craft you want to know more of.
Turns out, as of today, if these people have an online presence, the highest chances are on Twitter.
Seeing it through this lens it makes sense that Twitter isn’t growing its user base and lives off its highly engaged users.
I believe the core experience of Twitter has reached most everyone in the world who likes it.
Eugene coined the term “infovore” in the same article. I don’t care if you see these highly engaged users in a negative framing (addicted, neurotic, attention-driven) or in a positive framing (global, open-minded, intellectual elite). But what I would do is to market the service as *the* tool for the latter.
The goal of getting new and more users was therefore an uphill battle. By extension the advertising business model as well.
Not that Elon exactly helped to make Twitter a safe place for advertisers.
By the way, if the professionals at Meta can’t figure out a way to make growth with ads, I think it’s hopeless for Twitter.
A better Subscription Model
So as Twitter you want the infovores, the brands and the influencers on your platform.
There is willingness to pay for being able to get a message across in an easy and straightforward way to your crowd / fans / circle.
Make no mistake, the top 5% of users get insane value out of using the platform and therefore would be willing to pay insane amounts for it.
I had the idea to charge whales back in 2020 when I saw Elon (who else?) not being able to hold himself back from using the platform. In 2021 I added the pricing tier of 1k followers.
Let’s combine this with WhatsApp’s funding model in the beginning and we get something like this:
0 - 999 followers = $1 per month
1.000 - 2.000 followers = $2 per month
2.000 - 3.000 followers = $3 per month
...
10.000 - 11.000 followers = $11 per month
...
> 100.000 followers = $100 per monthEvery account holder would pay at least $12 per year (upfront billing) while it scales with the amount of value a VIP can extract.
The subscription could be spiced up with other features. Somewhere on the ladder, I would say at $5, verification is included.**
Yes, not every viral account has the cash (yet). At some point we need to establish a cap. Twitter should build grace periods into the system. And the option to let followers pay the subscription fee (after all they want the creator on the platform). If the creator chooses to make the account private, it would behave like a paid Substack membership.
Zack Hargett had some great mockups in his thread how advanced creator tools and monetization options we know from YouTube or LinkedIn would look like.
Of course this would reduce the number of signed up users. But maybe as Twitter you don’t want them that badly anyway. The Signal/Noise-Ratio should go up.
What certainly goes up is the status attributed to being an active Twitter user. Not so different from the Blue Bubble vs. Green Bubble debate.
Keep in mind that the people who left Twitter are not suddenly outside of its cultural influence: They can still read tweets (beloved Google Reader was read-only too).
More importantly News Media businesses are happy to monitor and translate the Tweets of VIPs to articles and TV segments for the “normal” folks.
Charging baseline $12 should be doable by the global elite of infovores while it’s a massive hurdle if you have hundreds of bot accounts. This move won’t eliminate all scammers or spam bots and you will still need staff if you want to keep up the fact-checking service. But it’s a very efficient addition to the content moderation service (which can only act when the harm has already being done).
When the tech bubble thinks of Twitter’s glory days, it had a) a lot less users and b) public APIs that enabled a flourishing ecosystem. Understandably this had to go when you chase ad dollars (3rd party clients filter or manipulate ads). With a membership model, Twitter could open up again.
Payments
Another big benefit of charging users directly: Twitter gets the payment details of all its users.
- Direct payments are made possible. Think the PayPal profile page or Buy me a coffee-button.
- Building on top of the Revue acquisition a Substack competitor would be possible.***
- Twitter could offer 3rd party services billed over its platform. Think TIDAL from our buddy Jack 10% cheaper via Twitter Payment.
Payments on Twitter are especially powerful because it has the identity part already.
The option to “Log in with Twitter” was one of the first of its kind.
Furthermore, a lot can be explained by glancing at the timeline of a given profile. From Twitter’s lost opportunities:
When I want to get to know a person in tech, it’s almost always the best way to start with their Twitter profile page. Instantly I have posting frequency, tone, connections, authority (based on the follower / following ratio).
The thing is, the sidebar with bio and links is treated very poorly. What if we add certain kind of information like job title, skills you think you have and things you are interested in (in hashtag format)? Exactly, we get a barebone, not-so-dusty LinkedIn competitor.
Now, remember what makes Big Tech “Big”: It’s the ability to build an ecosystem around identity (including billing).
A Big Tech company wants to be the One Stop Shop for your digital life. Services from this company are the epicenter for other online activities.
End Notes
A shift from ad-driven to subscriber-driven is worth a shot for Twitter.
- Fix the business model
- Now it’s easier to fix hate speech and other content moderation problems
- Become a paid-for protocol by opening up the APIs
- Become a ecosystem player by enabling payments
- Finally, fix the UX issues
This could all go wrong at every corner of the journey. Hearing about the morale from inside Twitter HQ doesn’t make me exactly bullish. It’s also a different Twitter than the one we got used to.
If I were in Elon’s shoes, I would make sure that I communicate my product vision as clearly as possible, so that everyone could rally behind it. Then leave the operational details to a competent Chief Product Officer.
If Twitter could pull this playbook off, it would finally be entering the Big Tech hall of fame — with less users, but more influence.
* From a tech perspective it’s a tension-packed thriller: When will the first things break? Sooner or later? Time for Popcorn if I wouldn’t use the service everyday.
** The verification process has to stay optional. Twitter has great anonymous accounts that have legitimate reasons to stay anonymous. (Another difference to Meta.)
*** Rumor is Elon will shutdown Revue. I mean, adding long-form content with expandable tweets could work as well.
