Thank you a thousand times over for amplifying this message in a space that needs to hear it the most.
Every ideological corner of our society has become addicted to free shit, and everyone explains away why they can tolerate the abuse and corruption that comes with not being able to fork over, in many cases, <$10 a month to actually be the target market for a product- while buying coffee and prepared foods that cost as much for a briefer experience.
You will not get independent voices or anything not homogenized and sanitized by Hollywood and mainstream media unless you are willing to actually pay for it.
Twitter going premium would make every single person who participates on it happier with the resulting environment.
Here's where I'm going to trigger some righteous self-defense mechanisms: no one who has time to spend on Twitter doesn't have $3-5 a month available to spend on it. If you literally don't have $3, you have way bigger problems than Twitter.
Among my guilty bluebird pleasures is @catturd2, who recently offered to pay I think $100/mo for a special brown checkmark, which he termed a "skid mark".
This is the sort of marketplace of ideas I'm interested in.
I agree, the customer should pay. And the customer should have an ironclad contract guaranteeing no customer data at all be sold or given to third parties.
I am so disappointed that people who are essentially weirdos with secret agendas think that they are entitled to
1) Dictate advertisers on how to spend their monies
2) Tell us what to think and what NOT to think.
I am very sad that they poisoned themselves with Covid vaxx, we prevented them from poisoning the entire population, but they just would not stop with their self righteousness.
My initial reaction: nothing is free. If one believes that twitter was free; one is delusional. You are being force fed ads and propaganda by corporations. As you both have stated the user is the product. $8 or be consumed. I know what my choice would be.
Gato, your data mining thoughts are spot on, and I can validate this from personal experience.
I suppose I am risking doxxing myself, but... awhile back I was leading a team that built an NLP/AI application platform that ingested, among other things, the Twitter firehose, that had the ability to make inferences based on incomplete yet related data.
We were looking for outliers - needles in the largest haystack on the planet - and despite the epic signal-to-noise ratio, we found some *extremely* interesting and valuable bits of information, particularly in the investment, M&A and public health sectors.
We could have scooped the NYT, WSJ and Bloomberg on multiple occasions, and discovered pathogen spread in areas before the CDC (perhaps not quite the triumph we thought at the time, but still...).
Unfortunately, as is often the case with promising tech, we had to go to ground due to a loss of funding, but what was crystal clear at the time was that Twitter is perhaps the greatest data mine in history.
We are currently having another go at another startup building similar tech but for a different use case.
Recent developments may call for (yet another) pivot.
Here's what I think may be sabotage within Twitter's ranks (what a surprise...):
Over the past 3 weeks, and especially within the past week, I have had FOUR Twitter accounts "permanently suspended" with all my "Followings" and "Followers" deleted. All the time and effort that went into building my "Followings" and (the much-fewer) "Followers" was summarily deleted by some asshole within Twitter.
For EACH of the suspensions, they said "after careful review" which included NOT telling my what Rule I broke, what Tweet got me suspended, and not telling me what language within a Tweet got me suspended. Just, Death Penalty. And even the "Appeals" process was pointless. They never responded to my appeals, never bothered to say even when I asked what it was that got me permanently suspended.
I can only guess that the POS human beings making these decisions are doing so out of malice, and are doing it to many (millions?) of peons who don't have major followings and thus don't have public advocates for their reinstatement. How many of us will try to get back on Twitter ONLY so many times, before we eventually just say "F it. I'm going elsewhere" or nowhere else at all, just give up? I know I won't keep trying to get back on, if as happened almost simultaneous with my most recent account creation I get permanently suspended, as others may experience as well.
And mind you, I've used 3 different email addresses and birthdates, 2 different phone numbers, and a VPN routed through two different portals (or whatever). Still, my most recent attempt was immediately permanently suspended because (and this time they answered) I was trying to circumvent their other suspensions.
But then how can I ever get back on? I can't. And the human debris in Twitter making these decisions at deleting and blocking thousands and thousands of peon user know that.
After the first suspension and appeal, Twitter even admitted in an email that they suspended me in error and that my account was now active again...BUT IT WASN'T. It never was restored. It's still suspended.
Pure speculation, pure anecdotal, I know. But Musk needs to get his (shit)house in order, and soon. I know he knows that, but I don't know that he knows just how much sabotage is going on 24/7.
I wouldn't mind paying to be a twitter "customer" the problem is that there are so many other important paid "subscriptions" that it can put a dent in one's disposable income. Particularly for those on a fixed income. There needs to be some "free" access, so people aren't' left in the dark. Thanks to all those that help make this possible, that includes you El Gato Bueno.
As Andrew Wilkow says (and a feline should appreciate this) “the mouse never asks why the cheese in the mousetrap is free”. Also Musk should shutdown every advertisers account if they don’t pay.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Got it. Here is my $8 Elon. I cancelled Netflix over a year ago when they were responsible for some censorship of free speech. Any company that does not support Elon with advertising $$$’s comes off my companies I purchase from. Declined Pfizer, will decline any other company guilty of trying to promote censorship. Name and shame.
Thank you a thousand times over for amplifying this message in a space that needs to hear it the most.
Every ideological corner of our society has become addicted to free shit, and everyone explains away why they can tolerate the abuse and corruption that comes with not being able to fork over, in many cases, <$10 a month to actually be the target market for a product- while buying coffee and prepared foods that cost as much for a briefer experience.
You will not get independent voices or anything not homogenized and sanitized by Hollywood and mainstream media unless you are willing to actually pay for it.
Twitter going premium would make every single person who participates on it happier with the resulting environment.
Here's where I'm going to trigger some righteous self-defense mechanisms: no one who has time to spend on Twitter doesn't have $3-5 a month available to spend on it. If you literally don't have $3, you have way bigger problems than Twitter.
Among my guilty bluebird pleasures is @catturd2, who recently offered to pay I think $100/mo for a special brown checkmark, which he termed a "skid mark".
This is the sort of marketplace of ideas I'm interested in.
I agree, the customer should pay. And the customer should have an ironclad contract guaranteeing no customer data at all be sold or given to third parties.
240 million people no longer seeing pfizer ads seems like a win for humanity!
I've never had a twit account - maybe I'll go start one and pay the small monthly fee. Just to help ensure pfizer never gets back on it... :-)
El gato malo and Ivor chudhov two of my favorite substackers. 💕💕💕
I am so disappointed that people who are essentially weirdos with secret agendas think that they are entitled to
1) Dictate advertisers on how to spend their monies
2) Tell us what to think and what NOT to think.
I am very sad that they poisoned themselves with Covid vaxx, we prevented them from poisoning the entire population, but they just would not stop with their self righteousness.
My initial reaction: nothing is free. If one believes that twitter was free; one is delusional. You are being force fed ads and propaganda by corporations. As you both have stated the user is the product. $8 or be consumed. I know what my choice would be.
Agreed--I just started $4.99 a month. II get to edit typos now (within 30 min of tweet).😉
I also wanted to show my support as the enemies of freedom are trying to get advertisers to boycott Twitter.
Gato, your data mining thoughts are spot on, and I can validate this from personal experience.
I suppose I am risking doxxing myself, but... awhile back I was leading a team that built an NLP/AI application platform that ingested, among other things, the Twitter firehose, that had the ability to make inferences based on incomplete yet related data.
We were looking for outliers - needles in the largest haystack on the planet - and despite the epic signal-to-noise ratio, we found some *extremely* interesting and valuable bits of information, particularly in the investment, M&A and public health sectors.
We could have scooped the NYT, WSJ and Bloomberg on multiple occasions, and discovered pathogen spread in areas before the CDC (perhaps not quite the triumph we thought at the time, but still...).
Unfortunately, as is often the case with promising tech, we had to go to ground due to a loss of funding, but what was crystal clear at the time was that Twitter is perhaps the greatest data mine in history.
We are currently having another go at another startup building similar tech but for a different use case.
Recent developments may call for (yet another) pivot.
Carpe diem, baby.
Here's what I think may be sabotage within Twitter's ranks (what a surprise...):
Over the past 3 weeks, and especially within the past week, I have had FOUR Twitter accounts "permanently suspended" with all my "Followings" and "Followers" deleted. All the time and effort that went into building my "Followings" and (the much-fewer) "Followers" was summarily deleted by some asshole within Twitter.
For EACH of the suspensions, they said "after careful review" which included NOT telling my what Rule I broke, what Tweet got me suspended, and not telling me what language within a Tweet got me suspended. Just, Death Penalty. And even the "Appeals" process was pointless. They never responded to my appeals, never bothered to say even when I asked what it was that got me permanently suspended.
I can only guess that the POS human beings making these decisions are doing so out of malice, and are doing it to many (millions?) of peons who don't have major followings and thus don't have public advocates for their reinstatement. How many of us will try to get back on Twitter ONLY so many times, before we eventually just say "F it. I'm going elsewhere" or nowhere else at all, just give up? I know I won't keep trying to get back on, if as happened almost simultaneous with my most recent account creation I get permanently suspended, as others may experience as well.
And mind you, I've used 3 different email addresses and birthdates, 2 different phone numbers, and a VPN routed through two different portals (or whatever). Still, my most recent attempt was immediately permanently suspended because (and this time they answered) I was trying to circumvent their other suspensions.
But then how can I ever get back on? I can't. And the human debris in Twitter making these decisions at deleting and blocking thousands and thousands of peon user know that.
After the first suspension and appeal, Twitter even admitted in an email that they suspended me in error and that my account was now active again...BUT IT WASN'T. It never was restored. It's still suspended.
Pure speculation, pure anecdotal, I know. But Musk needs to get his (shit)house in order, and soon. I know he knows that, but I don't know that he knows just how much sabotage is going on 24/7.
I wouldn't mind paying to be a twitter "customer" the problem is that there are so many other important paid "subscriptions" that it can put a dent in one's disposable income. Particularly for those on a fixed income. There needs to be some "free" access, so people aren't' left in the dark. Thanks to all those that help make this possible, that includes you El Gato Bueno.
As Andrew Wilkow says (and a feline should appreciate this) “the mouse never asks why the cheese in the mousetrap is free”. Also Musk should shutdown every advertisers account if they don’t pay.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Got it. Here is my $8 Elon. I cancelled Netflix over a year ago when they were responsible for some censorship of free speech. Any company that does not support Elon with advertising $$$’s comes off my companies I purchase from. Declined Pfizer, will decline any other company guilty of trying to promote censorship. Name and shame.
This is the awesome thing about Substack -- no ads means the writers provide content for the READERS, not for the clicks!
But do we know that $8 converts us to 100% customer? Perhaps it only makes us 50% customer, and the remaining 50% is still product.
Another slogan, "you get what you pay for" which is why Twitter is garbage.