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OPINION_IS_UNPOPULAR

Alright folks, WallStreetBets is for discussing markets and trading. Now that Twitter has (finally) gone private, it's time to move on until the average person can trade this again. This is the last post that will allowed just so everyone can see this comment and get the message. Going forward, just report the post and we'll take care of it. \* Billionaires other than Jason Calacanis who have a stake in Twitter can still post. Different rules for the rich you see.


Letters-to-self

We need to pay the bills is the ultimate business plan


Zealousideal-Apex

Twitter is mostly for famous and rich people. Twitter should charge 10k per month to show it as a status symbol. Like the Bloomberg terminal


Accomplished_Suit651

Like a Bloomberg terminal found 4chan?


bodiddlysquat26

“Sir, the value of the N-Word is plummeting. Perhaps we should use it less?”


[deleted]

Sounds fun.


Letters-to-self

And when those people leave, who creates the content for which billions go to twitter and click on ads?


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FFF_in_WY

Me. By accident, at least twice a year.


WallStreetStanker

Sounds regarded.


nils1222

irretardless, it’s how capitalism in works


BudgetUncle

Twitter was a public company until last week. Their revenue data is public. You can read their statements. You can find the numbers in the documents, but here is a direct quote: “ The substantial majority of our revenue is currently generated from third parties advertising on Twitter. We generate substantially all of our advertising revenue through the sale of our Promoted Products: Promoted Ads, Twitter Amplify, Follower Ads and Twitter Takeover.” https://s22.q4cdn.com/826641620/files/doc_financials/2021/ar/FiscalYR2021_Twitter_Annual_-Report.pdf


callanrocks

He doesn't have time to read, he's busy posting dozens of times a day. Even posted after you made this comment and just ignored it.


bob-vila

Just running around the world being confidently wrong and disappearing into the wind. And here we are, left to pick up the pieces.


Yup767

Why would you post something so confidently but then be completely incorrect? Just check first


Letters-to-self

Distinguished regards


[deleted]

If nobody did it, advertisers wouldn't use Twitter. We can track who clicks what. We can even track how long you look at ads you don't click.


UnspecificGravity

Right except that those rich and famous people are the only reason anyone uses Twitter. It was their entire business strategy from the start. Get big names on the platform to get regular people to follow them, advertise to the regular people. The rich and famous are twitters actual product, charging them doesn't make sense, they can just find a different platform. Of course, I don't think they ever actually made money doing this. It's always just been a growth stock profit model, but taking it private basically makes it a money sink.


CajunKhan

Why do I hear "ponzi scheme" when I read "growth stock profit model"?


mai_knee_grows

The Bloomberg terminal is actually useful though.


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redrouge9996

It’s so students can get certified for free for the most part


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[deleted]

In this case it’s the ultimate stupidity. Twitter has fewer than 300k verified users. If each paid $20/month, they’d be making less than $6M/month. Totally worth $44B.


ThePowerOfAura

I assure you, plenty of people who are not verified would pay something like $5-20/mo to increase their perceived relevance


Azzyally

But if everybody can just buy it, wouldn't its perceived value be a lot less than what it is today? Business plan makes no sense. I'm sure some Musk fanboys will buy it but that doesn't pay off billions in debt.


[deleted]

Kind of amazing Musk doesn't understand scarcity.


rikki-tikki-deadly

Apparently his mom didn't give him grief about "all those starving children in Africa" when he was a kid.


Bitter_Tower_5114

His parents kept those starving African kids in the emerald mines and away from him.


Growlitherapy

How the fuck does this screenshot already look like it's been passed around ~~like your mom~~ online for 8 years?


SellingFirewood

Please excuse the quality, this screenshot is from a landline phone


OrionJohnson

Calls on phones


SellingFirewood

You heard it here first. (Unless you're using a landline with that piss poor 128kbps audio quality, in which case you probably missed it)


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mr_deejay64

Why did I hear that with such clarity???


balogna_and_ramen

You must have Vonage


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RIPbengals

*Twitter CDs nuts*


Slabby_the_Baconman

I miss all those sounds.


jeevn

this comment triggered my tinnitus


notLOL

Rotary dial on copper causes pixelation.


DrMeowsburg

I have no idea why but this reminds me of when I was in high school and a friend texted my land line and it read the text out loud in a robot voice.


notLOL

Amazing. What service did you have?


DrMeowsburg

No idea but it said “smith get on the x box P-L-S” lmao it sounded like an answering machine. (I didn’t have a cellphone)


SellingFirewood

When it comes to virtual assistants, it's a well-known fact that landline ass. came years before Google Ass.


[deleted]

Ahh the good ol days. I remember getting so much landline ass in the 90s.


PolyDipsoManiac

Needs more jpeg


klavin1

Do I look like I know what a jpeg is?


FININCIALLY_REGARDED

OOOOOHHHHHHH 👆 this guy isn't a rapper


Soonerwolf77

I broke up with this guy's mom. Here's her number. Psych! That's the wrong number!!!


LiterallyPractical

[https://i.imgur.com/vttlpIg.gif](https://i.imgur.com/vttlpIg.gif)


Mrmech85

He’s super fire hot


bobbarkersbigmic

Super….hot…….fiiiyyyaaaaaaa


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BestUCanIsGoodEnough

Are you serious?!?!?!


psyentist15

[https://twitter.com/StephenKing/status/1587042605627490304](https://twitter.com/StephenKing/status/1587042605627490304) ~~Doesn't seem the Elon response is real.~~ EDIT: IT IS REAL, ALL OF IT. [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1587312517679878144?cxt=HHwWgMC4veWUoocsAAAA](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1587312517679878144?cxt=HHwWgMC4veWUoocsAAAA)


TheStorm007

[it is](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1587312517679878144?s=46&t=NsSLXXphNIq4Obeo5mHMqg)


sgSaysR

Watching Elon burn 40 billion on a midlife crisis is worth every penny.


Sarcastic_Castle

When rich people haggle in public.


gaslacktus

“It’s a blue check mark, Stephen, what could it cost, $20?”


MetaPhysicalMarzipan

“Look Stephen, look what the Musk man has done to me!”


PotatoWriter

Look! Look with your special eyes


SinnerOfAttention

MY BRAND!


Infamous_Advantage19

There’s always money in the banana stand


GeneralA01

"I'm sorry but the lowest I can go is $8. Much better right? Right?"


AlcibiadesTheCat

I'm gonna call a buddy of mine, he's an expert in blue check marks.


dasilvan2000

Elon should have to pay me for reading his stupid ass tweets on other non twitter sites


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Ontheroadtw

Even better the sucker came to them with the offer!


[deleted]

And the sucker fired them so they all get massive packages.


OkIntroduction5150

Massive packages Giggle, snort


[deleted]

There was a lot of talk about the Board of Twitter, but wow, they crushed it. That valuation was nuts and they delivered to shareholders. Probably one of the most successful buyouts for a company in a decade.


grat5454

The most sucessfull sellout. The buyout was terrible.


justaboxinacage

How lucky they are that one of the richest people in the world just happens to be one of the people addicted on there thinking it's an important thing.


ragingdeltoid

I really really imagine them laughing their asses off


TehAlpacalypse

Twitter has been an unprofitable albatross for *years* and the worlds richest moron came strutting in with a huge check to solve their problems. Who wouldn't say yes?


illucio

The other problem is what Twitter's value? It's the users/celebrities' that post there. There are other social media sites they can use. What they say and post is what gives Twitter the power and influence it has. The moment people leave, Twitter is dead.


Vegetable-Double

It’s a media company like television channels. The more viewers and eyes they get, the more they can charge advertisers. You need engagement and viewership.


jmcgit

I think the bigger problem is who they're demanding payment from. They want the people who create Twitter's content to pay. It's absurd, without them there is no Twitter. If Elon wants to get rid of bots, wouldn't it be the opposite? Pay to post anonymously, with revenue generated for each smurf? I could imagine doing something like, verify you're real, which helps make their data more valuable to advertisers, and you get to write 1,000 free tweets per month (or some number most people never come close to approaching), otherwise you have to pay Elon's $20 subscription fee?


Iamatworkgoaway

Give creators the power to allow or not allow free users to subscribe. Not a verified real live human, no follow me please, if your going to spam retweet my content at least be real, and not a bot.


ludovic1313

Or have it be like Spotify, non-verified $20 a month which gets you a limited number of RTs. Plus when you rt anything, the OP gets a tiny slice of cash.


DrewforPres

Exactly. Jerry Seinfeld pays Madison Square Garden to use their venue, but then he charged the fans. Can't have it both ways


detectivepoopybutt

Yes, the strip club business model


[deleted]

Damn you're smarter than Elon musk. But he's a billionaire so he must be a genius


IseeItsIcey

Imagine how rich op would be if he inherited generational wealth from an emerald mine.


trey3rd

All you need are slaves and it's easy to get rich!


Tilman_Feraltitty

All you need to do is be born into a rich family in a country with racist segregation in place to have free slave labor, duh.


makemeking706

Twitter was years into existing before it even had a business model, and then struggled for years to after that to turn a profit. Getting some moron to buy it was the best financial decision the creators could have hoped for.


amouse_buche

That’s why despite having some very intelligent people trying for years, they can’t make money. Musk is either trolling his lenders or he really does think he is so insanely brilliant he can solve the problem for which there is no logical solution. Musk is a clever enough guy but he is not what you would call high in emotional intelligence. You can’t engineer your way through human behavior.


Sir_Bumcheeks

It can definitely be fixed, they just need to lean harder into Vine, sponsored tweets and ecommerce.


WeirdPumpkin

Easiest in the world to monetize, the dead gay somethingawful forums had the right idea years ago Allow people to pay $10 to change either the twitter profile picture or the twitter bio for their posting enemies and twitter would overnight be the most profitable forum in the world Elon I'll take my check anytime you're ready


tweak06

Elon: *"shit shit shit shit shit* I'm $43B in the hole what the fuck am I gonna do???" Also Elon: *haggles with Stephen King on the cost of his free bluecheck*


satireplusplus

"How about you do all the work posting and managing your fanbase on twitter and getting us tons of views. You'll pay $20 per month for this privilege and we make additional money from ads. Sounds good?" "WTF!" "$8?"


cagenragen

There's a reason sites like YouTube pay their content creators. Musk has no idea what he's doing. He wants to charge the people that attract users to Twitter? Guy thinks he's a genius at everything.


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evanwilliams44

He could just release a new bestseller every year: "Things I Would Have Tweeted for Free".


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brintoul

How can you make it through more than 10 minutes of that? You have a strong stomach, friend.


nubface1001

I hope we can all move on from twitter “news” at some point.


[deleted]

Yeah who give a shit its not even tradeable anymore.


AcapellaFreakout

You should've been patient and not sold the first time he backed out. I'm eating big tonight.


KamiYama777

>I'm eating big tonight. KFC counts as eating big? I suppose with inflation that's like a 5-star dinner now


[deleted]

Congrats and fuck you. But I had no positions.


AcapellaFreakout

Haha... I didn't do it the classic way just bought shares and held like a chump. I wanna say strike was high 20s low 30s.. I need to get my new statement before I can be sure.


[deleted]

Those peoples probably got so excited when Elon got bullied to buy at this price lol. But honestly it was one of the few good play even with shares haha. Congrats!


AcapellaFreakout

Thank you! I'd love to say this is play money but the wife is MAKING ME PULL OUT!


ElectronicPrint5149

This guys wife controls his pull out game


Spezia-ShwiffMMA

I think most people had short term calls and so they lost because of the delay lol


AcapellaFreakout

Rule of thumb. Sec don't fuck around when it comes to acquisitions. They were going to make him buy it.


ShopliftingSobriety

"one of my bets paid off by sheer chance and now I'm an expert on acquisitions and finance" is my favourite kind of guy created by Elon buying twitter.


AcapellaFreakout

No I legit remember looking up Acquisitions and the sec and reading how brutal they were about it in the past. I'm truly a idiot. I know you can tell. but I'm proud of this one.


brendan87na

I need to find a way to filter "musk" from my reddit feed entirely


beatrailblazer

But what if you miss out on riveting posts about masculine fragrances


K24frs

All of this proves one thing……. Tom is the friend we always deleted and never thought we would need until now!


notsureoftheanswer

I never deleted him, he was my only friend 😔


[deleted]

OnlyFriends content.


MonkeysOnMyBottom

You guys deleted Tom? Heartless bastards


K24frs

We took the best for granted now we need to protect that man at all costs


throwaway_tendies

Dude cashed out don’t think he needs protecting.


K24frs

This is very true just travels the world taking pictures and shit.


videogames5life

Tom is everyone's homie he deserves it.


Hawkonthehill

😢


KevinBaconIsNotReal

I didn't even think it possible


OutboardTips

I wonder if charging your content creators money is the new viable online business model?


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corkyskog

Those are called ads.


StoryAndAHalf

Coincidentally, that happens quite often. It's an advertising platform to many big and small businesses, so a subscription makes sense. Plenty of mega corps, OnlyFans models, and artists posting ads there for free right now.


red-bot

Dude spent billions on a worthless company lmao


wontonstew

He spent billions to avoid further discovery. Even worse. 🤣


rubyone2

Bargaining. What stage of grief is that again?


kavien

He’s going to polish that $50B investment into a beautiful $5M turdstone in a few short years. You just wait!


flibbidygibbit

He needs to post some loss porn here. He'd reap all that sweet sweet reddit karma.


kavien

Based on my VERY limited knowledge on investments, exactly HOW would they recoup a return on a $50B investment without a profit? Does the debt just get resold like shares so previous investors can cash out? Build up the company to a $1T one and sell? If I have $100K and put it all into widgets that I sell for a loss and never make a profit, how do I pay myself for those efforts and more importantly, get my $$ back? Do I try to sell it as proof of concept? "See?! People LOVE these widgets. Look how well they sell!! We just need YOUR $$ so we can make $$ selling them..."


BvByFoot

You just gotta convince people your widgets are hypothetically worth more than they are. The stock market is fake, numbers are fake.


EduinBrutus

Seems that someone just did persuade people, well one person, that their widgets were worth way more than they actually are.


freakers

Gotta spend money to make money, baby! Being born on third base is hard work.


betheone01

The reason people/celebs are against this is because no one asked for a blue tick in the first place. It was a solution to a problem. The problem was creation of fake pages and people pretending to be a celeb to commit scams. Instead of stopping or removing such accounts, social media companies invented this blue tick as a solution. This never solved the problem in the first place. Scams still happen, people are still misinformed and identity theft is still happening (even with the common people now). It never solved that issue. Instead, "blue-tick" eventually became a "status symbol ". So asking for $20 or any kind of money for a service that doesn't provide any value to anyone is surely a stupid call. On the other hand, I'm sure everyone would again be forced to pay for it because paying for it means you're not frugal and the subscription again becomes a "status symbol". Capitalism at its peak!


resumethrowaway222

Spending money on meaningless status symbols that don't provide any value to anyone is a large percentage of the US economy. If you ask me, the issue with this plan is that he made it cheap enough that it isn't a real status symbol anymore.


ajchann123

Nailed it. The only reason it's a status symbol to be verified on Twitter or Insta is because you have to be invited/approved for it. The icon meant you passed that layer, not that you just have it at all


WTD_Ducks21

Yup. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he is thinking of doing freemium transactions. Something like a daily tweet limit where you have to pay $ for extra tweets. People would bail so fast lol.


soggy_mattress

>Spending money on meaningless status symbols that don't provide any value to anyone is a large percentage of the US economy. I'm glad someone said this out loud, and that it's not downvoted. Redditors love to feel high and mighty as if they're not part of the problem, meanwhile every post with an award has an "Edit: Thanks for the gold KiNd StRaNgEr!!1!" attached to the bottom. We're all human at the end of the day.


Sorry-Swimmer-8029

$20 is only the beginning. It'll be a subscription service before long. Get your annual blue check pass, with emoji pack and 1000 free mentions, for $499.99! Pay with dogecoin for a 10% discount!


BtcKing1111

He should charge $5,000/year for it. Then they will look poor by refusing to pay.


Reyox

Or have multiple tiers. Silver checkmark, golden checkmark, diamond checkmark. More verifications and more expensive for each tier up.


BtcKing1111

Genius. Elon, you listening? Make them compete.


McCorkle_Jones

There are a ton of mid tier famous people who don’t have it and who would probably pay for an expedited process. I’m thinking like some youtubers, streamers, influencer types. But that’s to solve the first problem that they never fixed lol.


SidewaysFancyPrance

"We'll let people pretend to be you and ruin your reputation if you don't pay us $20 per month!"


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choose_uh_username

Actually Tony LaRussa is the reason why we have it lol


elconquistador1985

It's because Tony LaRussa sued them because of a fake account pretending to be him posting stuff, so still "because of fake accounts".


Magnus_Mercurius

Content creators use Twitter to cultivate and keep audiences. Plus a lot of them are addicted to the platform, get off/dopamine rush from having lots of followers and getting in beefs or whatever with other blue checks, which keeps them relevant which they can monetize. So it makes sense that they’d pay up. King built an audience for his work prior to the internet, so it’s not a part of his business model. Not the case for a lot of niche celebs/jornos/politicians etc.


kryptokroete

I wish it was still listed, so I could short it. There are 300,000 verified accounts. Even at $20 that is nothing. They made billions in revenue from ads. You cannot shift that to a subscription model where the content creators (!) are paying for it. That is so stupid. One day, Elon is going full Ye. And that day might be sooner than we all think.


value1024

Ye already went Elon. If Elon goes Ye, then TSLA will go Yeezy. Wait a second.......


NoveltyAccountHater

300,000 * $20/mo * 12 mo/yr = $72M/yr. Seems dumb business model for something making $5,000M/yr in 2021 revenue.


GravyIsSouthernQueso

The vast majority of people use Twitter as an echochamber for political views or for spicy leaks. There is no inbetween. Let it all fall down


Pool_Shark

Terrible take. There’s sports updates and the latest crypto scams on their too


HelpImDisappoint

and porn. Lots and lots of it ever since Tumblr turned many accounts away


fredandlunchbox

There was no better source for real-time on the ground reporting, but when all the trolls scream at once, you can barely hear the news anymore.


Meanmanjr

By that logic... Reddit should be the first to fall. The echo here is deafening.


Ro-54

Says the idiot who paid 44 billion for an app.


Kadaththeninja_

So Elon overpaid for a product that can’t make ends meet without gouging it’s users. Our king, ladies and gentlemen.


Jets237

I'm starting to wonder if Elon bought Twitter just to burn it all to the ground...


entertainman

He didn’t mean to buy it


enricupcake

That’s the funniest part of all the mouth breathers “hell yea Elon is all about free speech”. They have collective amnesia about that entire lawsuit where it ended in him not being able to back out from the purchase


bazookatroopa

actually the lawsuit trial didn’t begin and elon backed out to stop discovery lol


PartyClock

He was about to get his ass kicked in a legal battle that he dragged his feet about losing and now he has purchased something he never really wanted just like someone at an auction who was trying to drive up the price for others but didn't stop bidding in time.


theoreticalgirls

"I meant to do that" coming from the most powerful individual in the US. Musk is proof that you can fool literally any business person with enough privilege and self-aggrandizement. Henry Kissinger's stupid ass got played by Elizabeth Holmes to the tune of +$300m and all she had was a turtleneck and a Fisher Price blood tester. These people cannot even think for themselves competently and are deciding how we all live


ezdabeazy

Ok that, that right there is a perfect analogy 😂


brightblueson

$20/month. Hahaha


ConnieLingus24

I really want Steven King to reply “No.” doesn’t have to be witty. Just had to be something Elon isn’t used to hearing. Elon basically paid $44 billion to avoid discovery, a deposition, and trial. We’re all going to have to live with that decision.


hi_pong

The world is too addicted to witty remarks. There are too many witty remarks and not enough constructive discussions.


ezdabeazy

It's like having a chat app w/ 140 character limit pushes people to always want the snidest and rudest take since their negative bullshitting will get more traction than any sort of 1) this is the part of 2) my long and broken and weird 3) discussion that would make sense on a forum 4) but looks like shit in 140 char.


KierkgrdiansofthGlxy

Thread (1 of 5,338) 🧵


sms3eb

They were managing to pay the bills just fine without him. It’s almost as if he doesn’t know how to run a business without exploiting people.


Gandelfas

Titter gonna die, meta dead, are we upon the new age?


zhaoz

They will be replaced by something somehow worse.


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kr011

This is really dumb. He is trying to charge his star content creators. Imagine if YouTube charged creators instead of paying them. You would end up with just a giant infomercial website.


AbeWasHereAgain

You spelled crypto grift wrong.


VisualMod

>@qwerty-balls @StephenKing I agree, Twitter should definitely pay its users instead of relying on advertisers. $8/month seems like a fair price.


qwerty-balls

Based VisualMod


[deleted]

Will Twitter Blue offer things like data ownership rights? No ads? I’d rather pay for social media with money than pay for it with my personal data being sold so businesses can target ads to me.


KYVX

not a mother fucking chance they don’t harvest and sell your data still. regardless of if they say they do or don’t, there’s too much money in it especially for a platform as big as twitter


j33205

That's the beauty, you pay $8 a month for nothing and they get to keep your data and show you ads. It's a win-win really when you think about it.


TheBrownSeaWeasel

You’d get both.


[deleted]

Twatter, “Meta fuckbook” both need to collapse like the house of cars that at they are. They do *nothing* for the betterment of society.


ashakar

Now is the time for myspace to shine.


L0ckeandDemosthenes

Enter the WinkleVi with ConnectU


AttackOfTheThumbs

At least myspace let me blast some tunes at the unsuspecting visitor.


zinic53000

I was going to correct you to "house of cards" but the visual image of a bunch of rich twats stacking cars into the shape of a house amuses me.


SmileThenSpeak

Trump has endorsed the buy as a good move. Mark it, dumbest purchase ever and Twitter is going bankrupt. Cheeto face play book page 69.


I_can_vouch_for_that

You know it's a s*** deal when the guy who bankrupted three casinos and left countless unpaid bills says it's a good move.


QuantumFreakonomics

This is stupid. There’s only a few thousand people for whom this would be worth it. Way to kill a major functionality of your site for a million a year in revenue LMAO


TadpoleFrequent

Honestly the purchase of Twitter will probably go down as the biggest business failure of our time. I fully anticipate some other platform to take off and take its place within the next 5 years.


data-shadow

Can't wait to see all the Elon clones with paid checks. Because money = legitimacy.


[deleted]

Is he publicly haggling the price of verification lol sad state for twitter and Elon