While this isn't the monetization approach I would take (for what it's worth) you do have to ask, how much is Twitter worth to you? Would you pay $10 a year? $5? $1 a month? Surely you must get that much value out of it?
Take Facebook for example. It's a free service that most of its users get a great deal of value from. If asked, wouldn't many (by no means all) pay a small fee as appreciation for services rendered.
The counter argument I guess is that someone else will come along and offer the same service for less (most likely for free). But if something really is of value to the end user, why would/should they be opposed to paying for it?
> Take Facebook for example. It's a free service that most of its users get a great deal of value from. If asked, wouldn't many (by no means all) pay a small fee as appreciation for services rendered.
The value of Facebook is that everyone else is on Facebook, so if they started charging they would lose a large part of that value overnight. Services that start free and get big don't have a high success rate of going paid (Salon.com rings a bell). No matter how valuable something is, if you've been giving it away previously there will be huge push back when you start asking for cash.
Charging for premium features is a much better idea since you don't lose tons of users overnight. I'm not sure if it will work for Twitter, I guess it all depends on what those features are.
You raise a valid question, and real-world networks/clubs that users pay for and derive much of the same benefits as Facebook are very well-entrenched as justified expenses, e.g. Country Clubs, Fraternities. but is it reasonable to understand that users would oppose paying for the kind of value that Facebook offers? Yes, absolutely. The sentimental and communicative value it provides really is quite fervent, but I think we have a long way to go to evolve into a culture that will pay for something that, in the realm of social interaction (not including dating), is intangible, not physically interactive, doesn't provide us income, and can be had for free (emails/phone calls/picture exchanging), simply for the convenience it provides. Sure there are exceptions and maybe if Facebook charged from the beginning, the prospect of Facebook charging for its services might not seem so outrageous, but, for the average user, the contrast of how removed facebook's value is from our everyday physical life in contrast to how "physically" money exists in the real world I think explains this opposition rather well.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 27.3 ms ] threadTake Facebook for example. It's a free service that most of its users get a great deal of value from. If asked, wouldn't many (by no means all) pay a small fee as appreciation for services rendered.
The counter argument I guess is that someone else will come along and offer the same service for less (most likely for free). But if something really is of value to the end user, why would/should they be opposed to paying for it?
The value of Facebook is that everyone else is on Facebook, so if they started charging they would lose a large part of that value overnight. Services that start free and get big don't have a high success rate of going paid (Salon.com rings a bell). No matter how valuable something is, if you've been giving it away previously there will be huge push back when you start asking for cash.
Charging for premium features is a much better idea since you don't lose tons of users overnight. I'm not sure if it will work for Twitter, I guess it all depends on what those features are.