EDS

If I write about a government program in the abstract, some of you respond in a pretty reasonable manner.  Instead, if I tie the program to the status of a well-known personality, such as Hillary Clinton, Obama, Biden, Trump, and so on, the quality of the responses is much lower.  Including from very smart people.

Take this insight to heart and apply it to your current thoughts about the new Twitter.

How many of you have written me to say that people “won’t pay $8 a month for Blue Check,” or whatever the latest suggested price might be?

Note from Elon’s own words that a) “You will also get: – Priority in replies, mentions & search, which is essential to defeat spam/scam – Ability to post long video & audio – Half as many ads”, and b) “And paywall bypass for publishers willing to work with us”, and c) “This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators”.

Please do read those words carefully.

Now I do not myself pretend to know what will work for Twitter.  But one implication of this proposal is that a free version of Twitter still will be available.  Is it so crazy to think that the forthcoming free version of Twitter will be “good enough” to keep the current users on?

Note also that under the proposed new regime, payments go both ways!  Hardly any of the critics note this.

Or do you think markets are most efficient when all payments are set to zero and kept there?  Maybe in some settings, but overall?  I just do not see why this kind of plan is so doomed to fail.  Let’s pay the creators who attract other Twitter users to create more and to induce more Twitter impressions.  An externality is present, right?

As a friend of mine once said “Never underestimate Elon”…of course I would invoke more rational responses if I instead wrote “Do not underestimate the current Twitter management team and proposal.”  But I won’t because I, like Elon, sometimes enjoy trolling you all.