Would You Pay To Use Twitter?

First, I have to start by saying that I’ve been fascinated with this pending acquisition since I first heard rumors of it.

Elon Musk is a real hit-or-miss guy as far as super-rich billionaires go. But I don’t think many will argue that he’s probably one of the most accessible of all the Masters of the Universe — that is, at least, one-way access.

I have personally had numerous censorship issues with both Twitter and Facebook over the past decade. I’ve been placed in extended Twitter and Facebook jail so often that I can legitimately claim cells with my name on them.

Seriously though, censorship across social media is a really serious problem in America

It is not something that should be laughed at. I only do it occasionally because it keeps a hardcore constitutionalist like me from going bat-shit crazy with rage every time I witness the audacity.

Anyhow, as far as my poll is concerned, I have to make a brief disclaimer that I was only able to do this so quickly because of my inordinately large social media footprint.

To date, I have 8 Facebook accounts, each maxed out with the allotted 5,000 ‘friends’, 6 Twitter accounts each with varying numbers of followers but none less than 1,000, and one as high as 70k. I have 3 LinkedIn accounts, each with over 1,000 1st level connections, 2 Pinterests, 4 Instagrams, 2 TikToks, A Mewe, A WhatsApp, 2 Tumblers, Twitch, and a Truth Social.

As soon as the news went public last night, that Twitter’s board was going to accept EM’s bid to purchase the outstanding shares of common stock at slightly over $54.00 per share, I began drafting my poll.

Why? Because we are soon going to be faced with a very odd scenario —

Twitter, the world’s second-largest social media platform — is about to become a privately held company.

That means no board (unless EM decides he wants one, though they would have no real decision-making power like boards of publicly owned companies do). They would be strictly advisory in nature if Mr. Musk even decides to adopt one.

It also means that Elon doesn’t have to answer to any shareholders when it's time to make a decision. This means that he could decide to implement any number of changes in how Twitter operates. In fact, some specific elements he’s mentioned that I feel we can safely assume are going to happen very quickly are:

1. Longer tweets, (bye bye 240 chars)
2. No more censorship for differing political ideologies
3. No more (or at least far fewer) Tweet bots
4. and most importantly, the monetization of the site.

That's right, in case you didn’t know, there are right now, ways to charge for paid subscriptions on Twitter as well as other means of monetizing your Twitter feed.

This to me is the most intriguing aspect of this change

That’s because one of the things EM has consistently talked about eliminating is, if he takes over as top bird, (top Tweeter? Twatter? Twitterer?) (Shrugs) know knows? he wants to drastically reduce, if not eliminate, the ads that show up all over the site.

While such a noble desire is highly commendable, it's also financially intriguing. That’s because, as most of us know, ad revenue represents about 90% of what makes Twitter profitable.

Sites like Twitter and Facebook, which boast massive numbers of ‘hourly unique clicks,’ can command ludicrous amounts of money from advertisers wanting to place ads on the sites’ most frequented pages. And, no matter how noble and philanthropic Mr. Musk may be, he didn’t just dish out $44 billion (with a B) to buy controlling interest of a fiscally upside-down tax write-off.

Writing a check for $44 with nine zeros behind it hurts even for someone with Musk-Money

Oh no, make no mistake, Elon Musk doesn’t know how to lose. He’s the guy that needed to make a spaceship and bought several decommissioned Russian Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM — Nuclear Missiles) to use as SpaceX’s original space vehicles. No, he and Twitter are going to make money — lots of it.

In fact, I give it less than a year before Twitter is on pace to make back this entire acquisition investment within the next ten years, possibly even five.

However, in order to do that, while simultaneously slowing down ads across the site or stopping them altogether, he’s going to have to open up different kinds of revenue streams. So I asked several of my economist friends who attended Columbia University with me, and the most prevalent method they seem to believe will occur is for EM to monetize Twitter to its patrons.

That’s right, he’s very likely to transform Twitter into paid subscription service.

He could get away with this because, as mentioned before, Twitter is the second-largest social media platform on earth and he is now its absolute ruler. Second, Sure, many will defect, spewing coarse epithets and expressing long-digit expressions of frustration as they leave — but many more will stay.

Why?

Not because they get to become part of a snobby, privileged, elite brand of avid social media pundits. No, many will stay because a subscription service Twitter will offer users infinitely practical tools to help them grow their brands — whether personal or professional.

Think about it

All manner of customizations and build-outs could be possible — and in relatively short order — on a newly revised Twitter platform that costs about as much as a Microsoft Office 365 or Netflix subscription does.

Like I said before, if people are convinced that the value is there and that the number of people using the platform hasn’t tanked too much, there are many many millions of people who will pay for that kind of ‘Designer Twitter’ experience — sadly, I think I might be one of them.

But what about my poll?

Out of all my social accounts, I posted the poll up to be seen in the direct feeds of just over 250,000 people. Out of that, 1,688 people participated in the poll. The results? less than 10% (152) said they would pay for Twitter.

However, (here I go throwing some shit into the game…) When I followed up with the question:

“Would your answer stay the same, change, or would you be undecided, if it was revealed that the new, “Designer Twitter” offered all kinds of personalized and customizable characteristics, with a publicly declared devotion to helping you or your brand reach your social media networking goals?

About 40% of those said they would at least reconsider joining “Designer Twitter” if they saw real value in doing so.

Will Elon Musk make Twitter a paid service?

I don’t think even he knows the answer at this moment. But you can rest assured he’s at least going to consider it and most likely spend a few bucks on some reconnaissance and idea development on the subject before ultimately deciding.