A business model for Twitter: Pay up | Outside the Lines – CNET News.com

I’m a Twitter user and i think it’s a pretty neat service so i read the following Cnet article by Dan Farber .

A business model for Twitter: Pay up | Outside the Lines – CNET News.com

 

I like a lot of the things Mr. Farber says in a lot of his articles, but the monetization pholosophy that so many people try to insert into web culture prompter me to post a reply.  I’ll post my reply in full right here:

by Trapfnder May 16, 2008 2:56 PM

 

Interesting Web 2.0 philosophizing in the article, “Hey, pay for it”, here’s the problem I find with this argument. Everyone likes free, some people like subscriptions, most people wouldn’t mind paying, and noone likes being ripped off. Twitter serves a basic function that’s fast but doesn’t offer anything “new” persay; it’s a modded InstantMessenger with a public directory. I already use 6 Instant messengers, I like Twitter, but contrary to what the technorati wants everyone to believe, Twitter is a dirty, fun pleasure,not an addiction. Jaiku and Pownce both offer cool stuff that Twitter doesn’t but Twitters easy and fun. People like to monetize everything and yeah its the capitalist way but the old bait and switch is nothing new. If you want to monetize something then start it off as a paid service. What’s wrong with that? Using the public for a testing ground then saying “Well, people like it, though we started it free, time to make them pay but only because it’s popular” rarely works. You’ll get some hangers-in, but for the most part the rest of us will migrate elsewhere. Sure, that thinking sucks, but that’s the way it is, sucks or not.

 

Instead of most pundits who gripe about how people don’t like to pay, I submit that people are just tired of paying 2 or 3 times for things so they look for alternatives. As a consumer I pay for a movie, jacked up snacks, then I’m subjected to commercials (not movie trailers) actual TV adds which are supposed to subsidize free content like um… network TV shows?!? But that’s ok somehow, I pay for content and then an advertiser gets to freely STEAL my time and I don’t care that it’s 30 seconds it’s MY 30 seconds. If I did that at work it wouldn’t be acceptable, so why is the consumers time acceptable to steal? The music industry seems to think charging me multiple times for the same item in different formats is great, so why shouldn’t my food at home follow the same premise? I buy hamburger meat but I decide to make a casserole, that’s another charge, or meatloaf, which is another charge, yeah, that’s about as much sense as the record industries argument makes. The movie studios aren’t any better when it comes to DVDs. Now, i admit I go along with the premise that, there’s a certain amount of money involved in the production of mass market DVDs. I like the packaging and i usually only buy the “Special Edition” because i like watching the behind the scenes stuff after I enjoy a film. That said, what’s the deal with me downloading movies for about the same cost as a DVD and having it “delivered digitally”? DVDs cost money, albeit, nowhere near the amount they gouge me for, and I’m usually willing to pay. Are you trying to tell me that it’s perfectly to charge me the same premium on a product that requires no ink, no plastic, no stamping process, oh and a lot of the times, no extras??? Are you kidding me?

 

But that’s capitalism, that’s what people will say. Other people will say.. “Well, what can you do?” What can i do? I can refuse not to pay, I can look for free and cheaper alternatives, and that’s what happens with these Web 2.0 plans. The consumer is just tired of being scammed. There seems to be some double standard where consumers are wrong because they find something offered for free then they argue when it’s monetized. There are plenty of reasons why alot of business models can not be applied to certain things. Twitters simplicity and it being free is its success, it’s that simple, take away one or the other and people get bored and frustrate and move on. I summarize my argument with this: If you went home and enjoyed sex with your wife/girlfriend for free and you found value in it and then one day she decided to monetize and charge you for services @ $5 a pop would you do it? Or like so many other services in life would you look for the free alternative? (Maybe I should have written my own article… eep…)

 

Maybe you agree, maybe you don’t, but feel free to comment.