POLL: Twitter To Charge YOU $1/month For Access. Now What?
I loosely made this point over at Chris Brogan’s blog a few moments ago in an excellent article he has written about the audacity of free – that is, how increasingly people are objecting to having to pay for things in an online world.
A while back I polled my readers about whether they’d ever pay for Twitter. As it stands, only about 25% said that they would.
This got me thinking.
If tomorrow you logged on to Twitter and were suddenly informed that it was now a premium service that was charging $1/month (ongoing) or $10/year to access the service, how would you react? Let’s say you had 30 days to make-up your mind and/or backup your stuff. After that, your account was unavailable – unless you paid.
For me, I’d gladly pay. Twitter is easily worth $1/month to me. I wouldn’t think twice about it. Twitter has an estimated 25 million users, and if everybody saw things like I do that would mean quarter-of-a-billion dollars of revenue per annum. Sure, I’d like to see that money invested back into Twitter – and by that I don’t mean Ferraris for Biz and the gang – but if it would mean the service could move strongly onwards and upwards, I’d be 100% behind it.
The pros of paying for a social network:
- Even at a low rate like $1/month, overnight you’d remove 99% of the spammers, trolls, bots, stalkers and good old-fashioned weirdos
- Because you’re paying for a service using a credit card, Twitter can easily verify you’re a real person. No more anonymity, and the perils that it brings
- Twitter can re-invest that subscription rate into a world-class professional network, and importantly
- It could remain independent
The cons:
- It cost you $1
Really, I see very little downside. But I’m not the norm. As Chris points out in his piece, many object to paying for anything, especially if they’re used to it being free.
So, here’s my question.
Loading …Once you’ve voted, please share your thoughts in the comments area below.
PS. To clarify, Twitter hasn’t made this announcement. I’m just curious how you’d react if they did.
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Great thoughts Shéa, the only thing I’d add is that probably most EXISTING users would happily pay 1$ a month, but how many more genuine users would sign up? Maybe some kind of trial period?
Yeah, that’s a good point. I think everybody would need that 30-day trial. They’d have to implement good security protocols to prevent you from having multiple accounts/trials (unless you paid).
I’d gladly pay, without hesitation. Twitter has helped to massively cut down on the amount of email flooding my inbox, and the associated reduction in mental angst is well worth $1 per month.
I think a micro-pricing model also sends a positive signal about the longevity of the service: “We have an obvious income stream, we’re going to be sticking around.” That in itself can act as a reassurance for anyone wondering whether to join.
.-= Darren Turpin´s last blog ..Email Marketing: the Importance of Getting the Basics Right =-.
Yep, absolutely. By making a stand and proving they can support themselves (and more) and remain independent it would send a wave of confidence throughout the network (and effectively around the world). As I’ve said before, the concept of micro-blogging, which Twitter has championed, is the game-changer. Not the company itself.
Even if only 20% of people paid they’d still be looking at $50-60 million per year, just from subscriptions.
Perhaps they could look at Spotify’s business model and those other 80% who didn’t want to pay went to an advertising-based account where they saw an ad in their stream every 10 tweets. That way, the network could maintain its existing size and still bring in a chunk of change.
Good thoughts, Darren.
Hey Sheamus,
.
definitely yes, it’s worth it for all the reasons you gave. And I think what we will see is the classic 80/20 at the end of the poll, we can see it already
Will be interesting how many real people will be left after the fake and double accounts are gone.
The question is also: Would you pay for all of your accounts or would you shut some down?
.-= KirstenWinkler´s last blog ..Twitter is Dead, here comes Squeaker =-.
Perhaps there should be a free account, and the $1 account. The free account should be pretty limiting. Perhaps limiting number of followers and people you’re following to 10 or 20
That could also work. It would certainly be enough to give you a taste of the system.
Clever suggestion. I’d probably not have joined if there had been an upfront fee. After only 5 weeks on Twitter – I’d pay a fee.
I would happily pay $1/m as well, but what is important is whether the people I use twitter to interact with would also pay. If they weren’t around, it would be pointless for me to use the service.
.-= Glen Allsopp´s last blog ..Breaking Free: Challenge Update #1 =-.
This is a solid point. I would perhaps suggest that those who weren’t prepared to shell out a measly dollar might not be made of the right stuff, but that’s perhaps very much in the eye of the beholder.
Yes, I would definitely pay $1/month for Twitter.
However, if all social media sites started charging, I would definitely have to pick and choose which ones I would use, as would many other customers. Some sites I’m on because they’re free, but I don’t use them enough to want to pay for them (like LinkedIn and Plaxo, for example). I would cancel my accounts in a heartbeat if they started charging. Thus, some sites could be increasingly ghetto-ized as more people move away from them.
On the other hand, these sites might actually try and improve their service if that was the only way to maintain their customer-base and attract new ones, so that’s good.
I’m really on the fence whether it would be a good thing for all social media, for those reasons. But for Twitter? I would definitely do it.
.-= Dave Roy´s last blog ..If Your’e Sick, Stay Home! =-.
I agree – it wouldn’t work for all sorts, and I’d pay for few (although $1/month is a pretty negligible amount, which is a big part of the point). I like it for Twitter because it really is the most professional social network, and I’d like it to stay that way. Plus, Twitter remaining independent, but still having a ton of cash coming in on an ongoing basis, appeals.
That would be a death warrant for the service.. i.e. no 1 billion $ IPO. Plus spam problem would not be solved because spammers wouldn’t be in spamming business if there were no money, op. would only cost them few thousand dollars more per annum and they would have user base that has credit card in hand but they would drop off the service as it gets stagnating/dying and move to new service.
That $1 billion valuation is nonsense – it’s paper money, based on an investment for a set amount. Even if Twitter goes public it’s still a theoretical value based on the assumption that the company will make X in the future.
Let’s say they can make $50 million/year from these subscriptions – that’s still $50 million/year more than they’re making now. And we’ve yet to see *any* evidence of a clear monetisation plan.
Yes, a very small percentage of spammers would stay on Twitter. But what you’d stop seeing is the thousands of Britney video accounts etc that are set up using disposable email addresses because it comes with absolutely no risk and, more importantly, cost. Like email before it, Twitter has a mounting problem with spam because the set-up and delivery costs are at or close to zero.
I should add that one account per credit card might be another way to really eat into the spam issue.
Businesses would invoice Twitter so they could have multiple accounts. This could be charged at a higher rate (for a bigger chunk of API) which would be an additional income stream.
Having just set up a second Twitter profile for a new blogging project (with little to no overlap with my current one), that would make me a little uneasy.
I fully understand the need to control spam and that limiting the ability to create multiple accounts is a big part of that, but I wouldn’t like to have to consolidate my two Twitter accounts into one.
Besides, what would families do? If husband, wife and two kids all currently have their own Twitter account but just one credit card between them, what do they do?
They’d buy the family account, at $25/year, billed to one credit card, which allowed you two parents and (up to) three kids.
Seriously, there are ways to do this. I understand what you’re saying about wanting to use multiple accounts, so maybe you’d need to buy a kind of multi-license, too. It could price a bit like software.
The other downside is that a good percentage of your followers and followees (undoubtedly some valuables ones) would also disappear, never to return. You’ll no doubt gain more valuable followers the long run, but that short term culling could cause a lot of people to question why they’re paying for something that no longer gives them the value it once did.
As has been mentioned before, some sort of premium service on top of the existing service would be a better way to go. Throw in lots of tempting extras, such as increased tweet length, more API calls, access to better search, security and private messaging tools, maybe even audio/video tweets, etc. Then I’ll pay $1/month. Turning the current system into a premium one will, diminished spammer population aside, only subtract value.
As I wrote to Glen above, I’d politely suggest that anyone who balked at the idea of $10/year for an improved experience and the knowledge that Twitter is making an income and is likely here to stay probably isn’t someone that you’re going to miss all that much.
That said, I’m sure there would be a few who’d move on who we’d all miss but there are other ways to connect. The underlying point here is that if Twitter wants to really be THE professional network, they need to make sure they continue to attract the professionals. And pricing out the spammers, trolls etc would be a smart way to show that they mean business.
Even $1/month would have a huge impact on the undesirable elements of the network. (Seth Godin recently proposed a similar concept for Craigslist.)
I like the on-top premium idea too (I’ve written about it before) but making everybody pay a very small amount is better than a relative few paying a much larger amount to support those who aren’t prepared to pay anything, and likely never will. After all, if you won’t pay a dollar, you won’t pay period.
$1 is not so much to ask for the amount of benefit you can gain from a service like this. One of the things you would probably lose is the casual follower but then they don’t provide much benefit to the community.
Agreed. One dollar to protect Twitter from becoming completely inundated with spammers, trolls and – shudder – text-speakers – which I think is a genuine risk unless something changes, is a very small price to pay.
Great idea. However, I agree that a trial period should be involved in the pay system. Perhaps limit the tweets per hour to 5? And under 25 followers?
Something like that is a very workable concept, definitely.
i would not pay a buck.
i would pay 10 bucks.
.-= gregorylent´s last blog ..Symbols of the Self – part three =-.
More cons than that. Also, Twitter is a vertical implementation of an idea that is going to become a basic service of the web. A distributed, open Twitter system is going to happen. Twitter charging $1 will only hasten that.
Twitter charging $1 will only hasten an open version of Twitter? I assume you mean an alternative. I think there’s a distinct possibility of that but it will only take off if Twitter really drops the ball. And believe it or not, charging a nominal amount to keep out the worst of the web isn’t a downside.
I propose that an open, anything goes version of Twitter is far less appealing than a professional version to anybody who really thinks about what it means.
So, what are these other cons you allude to, but do not address?
I think the problem is how long do you need to be a memer of something before you feel it is of value. The problem I see with free trials is that people don’t feel ‘engaged’ or part of anything so they treat the service as such. I personally think the web just got the charging concept wrong from the start. Nobody thinks about the price of an SMS but the minute you consider charging for something at $1 per month online people won’t consider it. If the web had a billing system like a phone bill, where people don’t have to think about spending nobody would consider it bad value to pay 5c to read a blog or $1 for a Twitter subscription, but no way are people going to take Their credit card out each time!
I just don’t understand why in the world people seem to think that charging money drives away spammers. Look at your mailbox, I mean postal mail, every single day. And the people that put that mess there are definitely paying to do so. Not to mention that unlike email, interfering with someone’s reception of spam in their postal mailbox is actually a fellony, whereas interfering with someone’s reception of spam in their email is not only allowed but is highly encouraged by all but the spammers. Believe me, I wish the post office would take it upon themselves to filter out all the unwanted postal mail I get just as my email provider and my client program do, but when someone who worked for the post office in my area tried to do that, he not only got fired from the post office, but he also got put in prison for his good deed. I have actually had days when I have had a full mailbox that had nothing in it that I either asked for or wanted to read. It was all unsolicited spam, which we lovingly call junkmail. Charging money on a credit card doesn’t even reduce the number of bad accounts on internet sites made by criminals, and even sexual predators. Just look at the online dating sites that people have to pay as much as $30 to $40 each month to use. Many times we see news stories on TV where someone had a valid account paid for with a real, valid, traceable credit card that actually belonged to them and used it to hurt people because the victims assumed, as you do, that if someone paid for the account using a valid credit card, they must be good law-abiding citizens. Another flaw in this assumption is a couple of little crimes called credit card fraud and identity theft. Sure I can dispute a transaction on my credit card that I didn’t make and didn’t authorize, but that doesn’t stop anyone from trying, not to mention that if they have a new credit card in my name using my social security number that I don’t know about, I will probably not see the transaction until I get my next credit report, which is likely to be as much as a year later. Add to that the fact that ID theft and credit card fraud are at an alltime high now. The problem is only getting worse, not better, not to mention that I just read in the terms of a prepaid Mastercard which I won’t name here, that if you dispute an unauthorized transaction, they will charge you $20 per incident. This is said to cover the research and investigation of the dispute. Fortunately for the person making the fraudulent transaction on my credit card, I would much rather pay $10 for them to use Twitter for a whole year, as in your example, than to pay $20 to dispute the transaction, which I probably won’t be able to recover from the person who used my card illegally.
Now how about this additional problem, which is not as bad as I mentioned above for some, but is still worth talking about. I already personally pay my ISP a little over $35 each month to connect to great free sites like Twitter, facebook and other useful free services, and I used to pay a different ISP $50 each month. I cut my cost where I could, because I am on a very limited and limiting income and have a hard enough time paying the bills I have now, since each month these days, prices just at the grocery store, not to mention the other monthly bills, keep going up and the money stays the same. Now add to this a $10 per year charge just to use Twitter. Sounds like a little, but if they do it, Gmail will charge $20 per year. Far fetched, I don’t think so at all, since Yahoo still does it for their paid accounts, and all you get from them when you pay that much is pop3 access to your mailbox. How much better is imap? Gmail may feel that their service in its current form is worth $30 per year. Now add Facebook at $15 per year and each instant messenger at roughly $8 per year, because it’s kinda like Twitter, but without all the social networking features, and communication is usually between 2 to 3 people at a time instead of realtime, taggable tweets that are searchable by everyone. How many IM services do you connect with each day? And if you have friends on one service, you are more than likely to have friends on a different service as well, so you will have to pay for two or more of those. Now add to that Skype, which I don’t personally use and don’t really like, but for some strange reason is extremely popular, which since they handle voice calls from one computer to another, could charge $10 per month. Unheard of? I doubt it, since Vonage charges $25, and the only difference is that Vonage connects to the telephone network and allows you to plug in a real phone. But with Skype, you can actualy use mobile phones and even their specially designed Skype phones now, and they also connect to the telephone netwirk, currently for a fee, further blurring this line. Then it gets really rediculous, but it could happen, since in business, if one company does something, every other company seems to think they can do it as well. Imagine $5 per year to search Google. But then again they could just as easily charge $10 because their services are, at least in the opinion of users, more valuable than Yahoo or MSN, etc. How many blogs do you read each day? Two? Three? Thirty? They each would take a little off the top as well. $1 per year? I don’t think so. The local newspaper charges more than that each week, and they make additional money running ads. Try something more along the lines of $5 per year for each blog you read. Yes, in a world where Twitter charges $10 per year and the blogger is paying at least that much to write his/her well-thought-out opinions, you could even pay as much as $2 per month just to read each blog. Hey. They have to make back the money they spent to write it somehow, don’t they? Then, if they want their artical posted in more than one place, which they probably would, since you will have to make a choice of what to read, they will pay even more to connect to all those valuable services that are charging them money for their account, plus probably an additional per reader fee, the cost of which they will certainly have to pass on to the readers. There’s much more, since the internet is much more than email, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, searches and instant messaging, but let me just boil it down here and now. In this type of world, you would be forced to make some rather ugly choices. Which is more valuable to you? Twitter or email? Facebook or the ability to blog? What if you want your blog updates posted to Twitter and facebook and want to subscribe to the blogs you read via email? What if you want to email your blog post or send it via IM? And what if you have friends on five IM networks and they all like the networks they’re on for various reasons? This is why we have multiprotocol clients these days. The networks don’t usually interoperate, and those that do usually don’t do it well. Currently, in today’s market, we have no problem doing any of the things I just mentioned. But in a world where something like Twitter charges $1 per month or $10 per year, the ugly choices have to be made. So make your choice. Which is more valuable and which do you want to cut from your budget, since now you are paying a combined sum to each of your favorite sites and services that could be as much as three times or more what you are paying your ISP, which is probably OK for some people who feel they live at the top of the food chain, but where I am, where it’s already a choice between gas and groceries, health care or rent/mortgage, we would either be effectively cut off from the outside world or forced to trust the local TV/radio and the people we see in person each day. Talk about a 30 year backstep, or worse, since the internet is fast becoming the main way information is disseminated, replacing most other more traditional methods.
.-= Kyle´s last blog ..Joshua 1:9 WEB ( God is with you) =-.
As was discussed elsewhere in these comments if all the social media portals, Gmail etc started charging, you’d have to decide what was important to you. I don’t have a problem making choices about where my money goes – I make them every single day – so I’m not sure why that’s an issue.
Lots of successful online businesses DO charge – Basecamp, for example. And for that money, you get a superior service than you cannot get elsewhere. It doesn’t mean free doesn’t work – it simply means that it’s not always the right way forward. More importantly, NOT free means the organisation has money to do things, and doesn’t have to rely on investing, pipedream evaluations etc. All while still having to find a way to make money!
As for spam, what charging on Twitter would do would eliminate an enormous amount of the thousands and thousands of bots and Britney videos that are set up using disposable email addresses. A script can set up huge amounts of these bots in no time at all with zero expense. If you had to pay for each one of those, it would soon add up. And a financial outlay with no guaranteed return does put a lot of people off. Yes, you get junk mail in your ‘real world’ mailbox (although it’s a lot worse in the States than the UK, where we get very little unless it’s hand-delivered, which again is low-cost), but it doesn’t begin to compare to the amount you get from email. I get hundreds of spam emails per day. Why? Because it’s free.
I’d also like to see that $1 invested in Askimet-style spam filters and features like that, which would further eliminate the mounting spam problem. But it’s not just about spam – there are many other benefits to paying for a professional social network, too, as I outlined above.
$10 a year would stop me in my tracks. I’d have to think. I’d have to prioritise expenditure. I’d have to make a choice. That would be awful.
Right now I don’t have to use my skills. I place no value on my time. I’m free from reality.
Free would be gone. Deathblow to fantasy – or is it a dream?
I would like to have to pay 1 cent per new follower. I’d love to pay 5c to follow someone new. I’d love to have a Twitter Account, so I could run a profit & loss, cash flow forecast and balance sheet.
Sure I’d pay $1/month, but that’s not the right approach in my opinion. I really think that access to social services, news, etc should remain fundamentally, predominantly FREE. That means that Premium services could be charged to businesses, and maybe also individuals. What Premiums? That’s open to the imagination. I can think of all kinds of useful add-ons that people (I for one) would pay for. But otherwise, yes, KEEP IT FREE!
While I’d have no problem trumping up a buck a month to maintain the service I currently experience (or, preferably, an improvement), I do worry that the range and depth of information available on the network will shrink with the user base.
I don’t necessarily subscribe to the notion that those who don’t pay have nothing of value to offer, ergo we’re better off without them. Not all of us are Twitter power users. I’d go as far to say that the majority of people who use Twitter follow a very small number of people, are followed by a small number in return and tweet irregularly. These are the people who are unlikely to trump up a payment fee, but I’d be cautious in lumping all these people in a “low value” tier, because there’s quite possibly a lot of potential value in this people.
For example, I’ve got about four search groups set up in TweetDeck to listen out for people tweeting about very specific aspects of classic/retro gaming. More often than not, whenever I discover an interesting person, they’re usually within the “casual” end of the Twitter spectrum. In some cases, they respond quite favorably to my ice breaking, follow some more people based on my recommendations (I’m looking forward to the lists, that will be very useful) and end up becoming a more active user as a result.
With a premium service (and no free service), I’m concerned that rich diversity of possible contacts will be lost.
Hmm, I still think there’s some merit to a Captcha solution. Introduce a premium service for the power users, but keep the free service for everyone else. The only exception here is that users of the free service would be required to use a Captcha every time they follow someone or send a direct message. Give premium users the ability to “ignore” all DMs, mentions and follow requests from free users. Of course, premium users wouldn’t need to use Captcha.
You make some find points, and a combination of premium and ‘normal’ users is probably the best way forward. And I agree that it’s not fair to place everybody who doesn’t want to pay into the ‘who cares, then?’ group. But, if somebody follows and is followed by few people and tweets very irregularly, I don’t think I’m ever going to see much value there. When you get down to it, Twitter excels as an information network. It’s okay if you want to lurk, but if you’re not participating I’m not really sure where the value is, to be honest, from the perspective of everybody else.
The more I think about this the more I think Spotify’s model would work really well for Twitter. If you pay your dollar, you get improved features (bigger chunk of API, spam filters, etc) and if you don’t you get one advert in your stream every X tweets. That way, Twitter doesn’t lose any customers, and those who want more can pay for the privilege.
In principle I have no problem with the concept of paying one £/$/€. However in the non-digital realm of reality, I’d be priced off Twitter overnight. Not because I don’t have a pound to throw into Twitter’s coffers, but because I lack the mode of payment which you stipulate and central to the concept of performing an identity check.
Its a good idea in principle, but for ‘little people’ like me (and I’m assuming there are thousands, if not millions like me) would be priced off twitter.
Something worth bearing in mind?
There are systems like the Pay Offline service offered by the Post Office, as well as pre-paid debit cards etc, that would allow folk without credit cards to be able to sign up for this. Again, ways around things.
I’ve heard of pre-paid debit cards before, but they didn’t really appeal or meet my needs, but this Pay Offline service seems like a great idea.
Haha now I feel all awkward and embarrassed about not knowing about a service that would benefit me greatly!
Cheers for the tip Sheamus.
Hi Shea,
I don’t see a problem with a small fee. There are people trying to maintain Twitter’s server and add features that benefit us. This costs money. I actually use two Twitter accounts, one for the business and one for my personal entertainment. Twitter has helped boost our sales a bit. We once paid $60,000.00 USD for a year of advertisement that didn’t even come close to bringing in any return. So yeah, I’d pay a few bucks a month / or for an annual membership to continue.
Thanks
)
This poll is just a great idea.
IMHO the “paid” internet scheme should be as interactive or 2-way as the medium is. In other words, one pays to participate and the medium pays back credits for contributions made to the “community.” One may also be “debited” for “stealing” good will from the “community” as well. The credit balance may be used to buy new upgrades, api’s, etc.
I doubt the spammers would waste their time riksing the debits. But I’m not sure about the girls who ask me to look at her dirty pictures. I could ding her and she will be “debited” a point. But, others in the community may choose to GIVE her a point. In this way the community gets to decide if they want more “me’s” or “her’s.” It’s called natural selection. I don’t care because I’ll just go somewhere else and the community will be what it wants to be.
Of course, if one wants to avoid the risk of more debits than credits, Sheamus could sell his polling services to them. (Hope Twitter pays you for this one – could be valuable)
Katherine Warman Kern
@comradity
I would pay for Twitter, under the condition the price stays pretty low. I think 1 dollar a month is reasonable and I would be glad to pay it for Twitter because Twitter is important for me and has brought me many positive things.
.-= Sanne´s last blog ..Voorpret =-.
I would not like miss Twitter any more, so I would even pay more than one dollar, but I think in 3rd world countries it should stay free.
Ortwin Oberhauser
feel free to follow me on
twitter > @Oberhauser
I will follow back
.-= Ortwin Oberhauser´s last blog ..Google Wave =-.
As a marketer I’d gladly pay a lot more than a dollar. Well, as an individual I would, too, because I really like Twitter. I feel pretty strongly that those who actually USE it would pay – but the casual users would drop out. It’s the marketplace at work – those who use it and can justify the expense in their mind will pay; new users probably won’t because it takes some people a while to “catch on” to what twitter is all about.
Nice post – interesting. Keep ‘em coming!
.-= Jeanette Cates´s last blog ..Guest Article: Why Audio Beats the Pants Off Video =-.
The irony is that, while twitter is a great service, what makes it great is its broad userbase and easy access (“follow us on Twitter”). Once you start charging, you remove the very thing that makes Twitter valuable enough to pay for. So there's irony.
Spammers aside, I think most regular users wouldn't pay for it. They would just move over to Facebook (or whatever else popped up to take Twitter's place).
So, no, I don't think that's a good idea for Twitter.
Depends on how you look at it. For me, Twitter works both as an excellent business tool and a source of information/pleasure/fun, so I'd happily pay $1/month, especially if it meant better features.
I think a pro version of Twitter – either alongside what we have now or standalone (either by Twitter or a competitor) – is an inevitability. The trick is not pricing out the average user – because without them the service has almost no value to marketers and brands (they won't make much selling to each other) – which is why a free and premium version for businesses and power-users is the most probable outcome, and I think we should see this before the year is out. It won't be $1/month, either. But if it comes with spam filters, editing, a bigger share of API, internal stats, an improved private messaging system etc (as I detailed here), then I think enough people will pay to make a nice revenue stream for Twitter, Inc.
Besides, the question wasn't about whether or not it was a good idea – it was whether YOU would pay. And I'm guessing you wouldn't, even for a measly dollar.
I'd pay it initially, but I'd see how it effected my network before committing to always paying. Just because I start paying, doesn't mean Twitterers whose output I value will pay too. As it stands, Twitter is an incredible resource, constantly bringing me high quality, useful and entertaining content, if that were to be damaged by valuable users drifting away rather than pay, that would severely impact the value I get from Twitter.
Twitter might make a big wedge of money initially, but there's a danger it would seriously harm the service's reach and influence.
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