WingNews

Tomte|3 years ago

After Elon replied, a user came up with this gem:

"Only on Twitter can we watch a man worth $200 billion negotiate with a man worth $500 million about saving $12 a month"

samatman|3 years ago

Reminds me of all the people who swear up and down they're moving to Canada or Europe after the latest disappointment in the voting booth.

They never do. Musk may or may not charge his $20, but King will pay it if he does, he's bluffing.

watwut|3 years ago

Tho, big difference is that moving to Canada is huge effort and risk. Many people doing that would be mass migration and Canada would try to stop it.

Meanwhile, platform dying cause people left is something that happened many times already. Usually they don't leave with one bang and they won't here. It happens over months slowly.

SyneRyder|3 years ago

I nearly missed Elon's follow up tweet on the $8/month:

"This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1587505731611262976

So I guess they are actually planning to pay Stephen King after all, if he stays Twitter Blue. (Presumably his share of the money would be more than $8/month.)

How they distribute the money will be key. Would it be based on generic follower counts & likes & engagement - which will surely drive massive waves of spambot activity - or will each user's $8/month be distributed to the accounts they follow, almost Patreon or Flattr style? That might actually be interesting.

CivBase|3 years ago

> they should pay me

...why?

As someone who doesn't use Twitter, remarks like this have left me very confused. Clearly these people found Twitter valuable before. Does not having the checkmark make it less valuable? Is there an alternative service that provides similar value?

The blue checkmark is a service. Now they want money to continue that service. If you don't want it, don't pay for it. Leaving over concerns about Elon's vision for the platform makes sense, but I really don't get leaving over the checkmark subscription.

wlonkly|3 years ago

I wish I could remember where I saw this to credit (and not paraphrase), but I saw a tweet which said, basically: "Twitter somehow got Stephen King, Taylor Swift and thousands of others to produce content for them for free. And now they want to lose them over $20/month?"

jmyeet|3 years ago

> ...why?

Because the content on Twitter is generated by a relatively small number of users. A lot never tweet, quote tweet or retweet but it goes beyond that number once you weight it by audience. A small number of people have a large amount of reach and thus are responsible for a good chunk of the content.

That content is why the users are on Twitter and it is those users who are advertised to that pay for Twitter to exist. That's what Stephen King means.

Now you can turn this around and say that those power users are only there because the audience is and that they get value for being there but platforms need users and users follow creators more than the platform as a general rule.

cmh89|3 years ago

It seems rather symbiotic to me. twitter has nothing to offer without people of note. People of note use it to become more popular. I think generally people of note don't need twitter to be successful but twitter needs them

HWR_14|3 years ago

>> they should pay me

> ...why?

Steven King is currently worth ~500MM USD. That money solely came from selling his words. So, we know they have a great deal of market value.

That's why.

philwelch|3 years ago

Honestly, Stephen King probably loses more brand equity than that just from what he posts on Twitter. It’s gotten to the point where I actively avoid following any writers or creative types on Twitter just to avoid my perception of their work being colored by how they conduct themselves on Twitter.

incompatible|3 years ago

Twitter may lose one Stephen King, but presumably now anybody with the same name can get the blue check. All those $8 per month will add up.

MivLives|3 years ago

So Twitter's monetization system is basically going to work the same way domains do with squatters?

slimebot80|3 years ago

Totally right.

And Musk's answer was to offer $8/m

King wasn't talking about paying anything

monksy|3 years ago

He's trying to anchor it and make the situation look better so it's "more reasonable."

Realistically.. is it worth more than 4$ a month? Probably not. Why would you pay 8 for that?

bufferoverflow|3 years ago

He is bluffing.

bandyaboot|3 years ago

Are you saying he won’t leave or that he will accept paying money to Elon Musk for his checkmark?

ekianjo|3 years ago

As if King cant pay 20 dollars.

dmix|3 years ago

Everyone seems to either be assuming King somehow cares about paying $$ instead of making a political statement and/or Elon was making a serious earnest reply to King, instead of being his usual needling shitposter self. Neither of which both of their histories supports.

Stephen King will quit Twitter just as credibly as Jay-z “retired” from rapping.... like Elon Musk gives a shit about convincing a person worth $500M+ that $20 vs $8/m is too much to ask.

MisterBastahrd|3 years ago

As if that were ever the point.

It's like charging actors to act, or charging writers to write.

Without people like King, twitter has no chance of surviving long-term. It does nothing special. It was simply in the right place at the right time.

paxys|3 years ago

As if Elon needs 20 dollars.

memish|3 years ago

The idea that someone who is addicted to Twitter and worth $500M would leave because they lose their special Blue Check over $20 is hilarious.

He's just butt hurt because the VIP room and symbol is being opened to the proles. Now any schlub with $8 can have the once exclusive symbol.

tptacek|3 years ago

Anywhere Stephen King writes, he'll have an audience. That's what's so funny about this particular example. There are indeed Twitter celebrities who depend on Twitter for their audience, but King isn't one of them: he's pumping more credibility into Twitter than he's extracting from it, and the platform (and all the Twitter celebrity remora attached to it) depend on people like him to keep doing it.

He's right: Twitter should be paying him. That's not true of all blue-checks, but it's true of many of the most popular of them.

pyrale|3 years ago

> Now any schlub with $8 can have the once exclusive symbol.

And as a consequence, it is not worth the $8. King's analysis is correct.

oneeyedpigeon|3 years ago

Stephen King is addicted to Twitter? He's posted an average of 2-3 tweets per day — I wouldn't call that addicted.

sangnoir|3 years ago

And yet Musk was in his replies, haggling.

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