Dear Twitter! — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:03- Hey, what's up?
2. 0:04MKBHD here.
3. 0:04So, I really like Twitter, okay?
4. 0:06This comes from a place of love.
5. 0:08But, when you really like something,
6. 0:09you wanna see it succeed.
7. 0:11So, I've been on Twitter for 13 plus years.
8. 0:14I've tweeted over 50,000 times, don't judge me.
9. 0:17But, I use several different Twitter apps,
10. 0:19I have third party apps on my phone.
11. 0:20I've already made a "Dear Twitter" video,
12. 0:22this was five years ago.
13. 0:24And actually,
14. 0:26some of the suggestions that I made in that video,
15. 0:27including the ability to edit tweets
16. 0:29now has actually made it to the product
17. 0:31which is kind of amazing.
18. 0:32But, I don't know if you guys have heard,
19. 0:34but Twitter, they're kinda going through a lot right now.
20. 0:38So, Elon Musk has actually bought Twitter
21. 0:40and taken over leadership very quickly,
22. 0:42and a lot of pretty drastic changes
23. 0:44are being made very quickly.
24. 0:46Reorganizing the whole company,
25. 0:48firing people, unfiring people.
26. 0:51Tons of new feature suggestions are on the table.
27. 0:53Honestly, it feels like anything is on the table.
28. 0:55So from the outside looking in,
29. 0:57it just looks like complete chaos.
30. 0:58Even if you're on Twitter, it's chaos.
31. 1:00But I just, I want it to work.
32. 1:02Like, I want Twitter to be good.
33. 1:05I don't know, I'm one of those sickos
34. 1:07that actually enjoys spending time on Twitter sometimes.
35. 1:09And maybe it's kind of hard to explain why,
36. 1:11but Twitter feels like
37. 1:13it's a pretty unique social media platform.
38. 1:17It's a unique experience
39. 1:18because it actually makes everyone feel reachable.
40. 1:22Like, it actually has a pretty small user base
41. 1:24as far as daily active users.
42. 1:26Facebook has literally 10 times the amount of active users.
43. 1:29Twitter literally has less daily active users
44. 1:32than Snapchat right now.
45. 1:33But, it does feel like it has an outsized impact
46. 1:36relative to that number of people.
47. 1:38Like, there are a ton of interesting people, personalities,
48. 1:42athletes, politicians, celebrities, musicians,
49. 1:45and artists all over Twitter.
50. 1:46And it feels like
51. 1:47if you could just reach out to any one of them,
52. 1:49they might see it and reply back.
53. 1:52It just happens all the time.
54. 1:53So anyway, I'm rooting for Twitter to do well.
55. 1:57But, with all the chaos going on right now, most people
56. 2:00do not have that level of confidence in them at all.
57. 2:03Now, a few days ago, I tweeted that YouTube is in fact
58. 2:06still the only true S-tier social media platform.
59. 2:10To which Elon immediately replied, "For now."
60. 2:13So, you know what?
61. 2:14I'm just gonna take you at face value here.
62. 2:17I'm gonna assume and believe that you actually want Twitter
63. 2:20to be an A-plus, amazing, great social media platform.
64. 2:25So, I'm just gonna tell you
65. 2:26what I think Twitter should do to actually achieve that.
66. 2:30And this is just coming
67. 2:30from my years of experience on social media.
68. 2:33Elon currently follows me on Twitter,
69. 2:35maybe he'll see this.
70. 2:36Maybe I can actually make this a useful video.
71. 2:38Now, to be clear, I don't think Twitter
72. 2:40becomes an S-tier social media platform
73. 2:43by just aping YouTube
74. 2:44or by becoming a direct YouTube competitor.
75. 2:47It should still be its own thing.
76. 2:49But, as imperfect as it is,
77. 2:52there's a lot of things that YouTube does really well,
78. 2:55and there's a reason I put it as S-tier.
79. 2:57And there's a reason, the same reason that a lot of people
80. 3:01who blow up on a different social media platform,
81. 3:04from Vine, to TikTok, to Instagram, to Twitter,
82. 3:10nine times outta 10, their next move
83. 3:12is to try to convert as much of that as possible
84. 3:15to a YouTube channel.
85. 3:16So, here's a little diagram I made.
86. 3:17This is what I'll call the virtuous cycle
87. 3:20of the YouTube creator ecosystem.
88. 3:23It's oversimplified,
89. 3:23but obviously many creators on YouTube use outside tools.
90. 3:26But, the basic premise
91. 3:28is there's a lot of creators on YouTube,
92. 3:30and those creators are making content,
93. 3:32contributing to the world's largest online video library.
94. 3:35YouTube builds monetization tools around those videos,
95. 3:38which in turn gets creators paid and happy,
96. 3:41which gets them making more content, et cetera, et cetera.
97. 3:44It just keeps flowing in a circle.
98. 3:45Now, I don't know exactly how much Elon knows
99. 3:47about YouTube monetization specifically
100. 3:49or the tools that they've built.
101. 3:50I'm again, just gonna go by face value here.
102. 3:53But, it's also a legitimately hard business question.
103. 3:55If you're trying to build something like that cycle,
104. 3:59where do you jump in?
105. 4:00Like, Twitter doesn't necessarily have
106. 4:02a YouTube style massive library of content,
107. 4:08but what it does have is a lot of really interesting
108. 4:11high-profile creative users.
109. 4:14So, dear Twitter, a suite of evolving creator tools
110. 4:19would make a massive difference to the entire website.
111. 4:23So, over the years, YouTube has added things
112. 4:25from all over the place.
113. 4:26There's the YouTube Partner Program,
114. 4:28so where advertisers pay for spots alongside YouTube videos.
115. 4:31And YouTube shares 55% of that ad revenue
116. 4:34with the uploader of the video.
117. 4:36They also recently announced to monetize Shorts,
118. 4:38even more revenue sharing in the Shorts feed
119. 4:40starting next year.
120. 4:42They also have Super Thanks,
121. 4:44which puts a donation button under a video
122. 4:46that makes your comment distinct and colorful.
123. 4:48And creators receive 70% of that donated money.
124. 4:51They also have Super Chats and Super Stickers
125. 4:54during live streams,
126. 4:55so viewers can pay to have their chats highlighted.
127. 4:58Creators also keep 70% of that money.
128. 5:00And there's Channel Memberships,
129. 5:02where you can offer exclusive content
130. 5:04to a smaller group of paid subscribers or members.
131. 5:07And the creators, again, get 70% of that money.
132. 5:10Now, Twitter actually has some of this stuff already.
133. 5:12I think basically Super Follows
134. 5:14are like the equivalent of Channel Memberships.
135. 5:17And Twitter actually beats the percentage by a mile.
136. 5:19Twitter will give 97% of the revenue of a paid follower
137. 5:24to that creator on Twitter, up to 50 grand,
138. 5:27and then it's 80% after that.
139. 5:28That's still really good.
140. 5:29But, they really could use more of these things.
141. 5:31Like, just how YouTube has copied a lot of these features
142. 5:33from other platforms, Twitter should also feel free
143. 5:35to adapt a lot of these things for its own platform.
144. 5:39I keep thinking back
145. 5:39to remembering Periscope and live streaming,
146. 5:42when that was happening a lot more often.
147. 5:44That was really solid,
148. 5:46and that should have been more easily monetized.
149. 5:48And while you can upload videos to Twitter,
150. 5:51ads and revenue sharing
151. 5:53aren't really a thing for the masses,
152. 5:55but they totally could be.
153. 5:56I think they should be.
154. 5:58Imagine you're just a random user who's making videos,
155. 6:01putting them on Twitter, and by chance,
156. 6:02one of them just pops off and just gets a ton of exposure,
157. 6:05or gets retweeted by a bunch of people.
158. 6:07And suddenly, that's a nice chunk of change in your pocket.
159. 6:09That would be pretty incredible.
160. 6:11And that also incentivizes
161. 6:13more uploads of high-quality videos to Twitter.
162. 6:15Also, I saw Elon respond to our boy, Quinn, on Twitter,
163. 6:17(laughing gently)
164. 6:18who mentioned that the YouTube Partner Program
165. 6:20pays creators 55%.
166. 6:22And Elon said they can beat that percentage,
167. 6:24and that sounds great.
168. 6:25I believe you,
169. 6:27you've already beat some other percentages from them.
170. 6:28But, if nobody really advertises on your platform,
171. 6:32then the percentage doesn't really matter, does it?
172. 6:35So,
173. 6:36that's where we should just get right into talking about it,
174. 6:38relying on advertisers versus subscriptions.
175. 6:42So, as you've probably noticed by now,
176. 6:45the internet runs on ads.
177. 6:49It just does.
178. 6:49Like, social media platforms,
179. 6:51revenue's generated by advertisers.
180. 6:54Major websites, and blogs, and things that you read,
181. 6:56they run on ads.
182. 6:57Like all these big websites and major content places,
183. 7:01they get their revenue from advertising.
184. 7:03And whatever you think about ads,
185. 7:05like obviously they're annoying sometimes,
186. 7:06but it's what makes the world turn in online media.
187. 7:10It's just true.
188. 7:11Now, these companies are also smart.
189. 7:12These social media companies especially are smart
190. 7:15because they're trying to introduce
191. 7:17more subscription services
192. 7:19so that they can reduce their reliance on ads.
193. 7:22If you have more subscription services
194. 7:24that people actually pay for,
195. 7:25that's recurring revenue that's guaranteed every month,
196. 7:27instead of having to rely on the finicky ad buyer market.
197. 7:31So, Snapchat made Snapchat Plus,
198. 7:33which is a $4-a-month subscription
199. 7:35for some extra custom stories, and post settings,
200. 7:38and notification features.
201. 7:39Meta launched Instagram Subscriptions,
202. 7:41where creators can charge up to $100 a month
203. 7:43for exclusive content, including Stories.
204. 7:45We even have an MKBHD Discord channel, which is mostly free,
205. 7:48but now also has Premium memberships with extra channels.
206. 7:51And the thing that all of these
207. 7:53successful subscription services have in common
208. 7:56is adding value, or at least adding perceived value,
209. 8:00for the person paying.
210. 8:01But here's the thing, ads still run the internet.
211. 8:05Like, as successful
212. 8:06as some of these subscription models have been,
213. 8:08ads are still where the revenue's at.
214. 8:11Here's an example.
215. 8:12YouTube has 2,600,000,000 monthly active users.
216. 8:17It's gigantic, right?
217. 8:18How many of them do you think pay for YouTube Premium?
218. 8:21Go ahead, guess.
219. 8:232,600,000,000 total.
220. 8:24So, it's 12 bucks a month.
221. 8:25You get background play, you get no ads,
222. 8:27you get the ability to download stuff for offline.
223. 8:30How many people do you think?
224. 8:32About 20,000,000 people pay for YouTube Premium.
225. 8:36So that's good money, sure,
226. 8:37but that's about 10% of the $28,000,000,000
227. 8:41they made in that calendar year.
228. 8:42So yeah, YouTube still runs on ads.
229. 8:45Even Netflix,
230. 8:46the like grandfather of subscription models for content,
231. 8:51they also just recently added in ads tier.
232. 8:52Like, it feels like 10% is the magic number
233. 8:56of how much revenue you can make with subscriptions
234. 8:59if it's a great subscription service,
235. 9:01but you just make the rest of your money with ads.
236. 9:03But Twitter, you know, if they really, really want
237. 9:06to reduce their reliance on advertisers,
238. 9:09if they wanna completely avoid any potential adpocalypse,
239. 9:12if they want Twitter to be this free speech haven
240. 9:16that is every advertiser's worst nightmare,
241. 9:18if they really wanna turn the corner
242. 9:20on subscription service revenue,
243. 9:22then they have to make a really good subscription service.
244. 9:25They have to make it full of features
245. 9:27that people actually wanna pay for.
246. 9:28You know what I always think back to?
247. 9:30People pay $30 a month for LinkedIn Premium.
248. 9:34$30 a month, (laughing gently) that's a lot of money,
249. 9:37but that's because they offer real features
250. 9:39that people actually get value from.
251. 9:40So, fun fact, many years ago,
252. 9:41I tweeted just off the top of my head
253. 9:43a random subscription idea that I had for YouTube.
254. 9:46This was in like, 2016.
255. 9:48And the brilliant name I came up with was "YouTube Blue."
256. 9:51And I basically just wanted it to offer
257. 9:53faster priority processing
258. 9:55for extremely large uploaded files.
259. 9:58Like, I would totally pay every month as an uploader
260. 10:00for priority processing because that's of value to me,
261. 10:04someone who creates content for YouTube.
262. 10:06But now, many years later,
263. 10:07we have this thing called Twitter Blue.
264. 10:10Great.
265. 10:10Oh, it's a subscription service, what a coincidence.
266. 10:12Beautiful.
267. 10:13We should fill it with things
268. 10:14that people actually wanna pay for.
269. 10:16So my main request to Twitter
270. 10:18is putting actual time and effort
271. 10:21into thinking of and developing features for Twitter Blue
272. 10:26that are actually good and worth extra dollars.
273. 10:29And I think that focusing on the creator class
274. 10:31and the power users of Twitter can probably be
275. 10:33a really good guidance point for those things.
276. 10:36So unfortunately, the first year of Twitter Blue
277. 10:39kinda sucked because most of the features
278. 10:41weren't really compelling for very many people.
279. 10:44Like you could undo tweets, which was kinda stupid,
280. 10:47but you could also upload longer videos
281. 10:50that were up to 1080p.
282. 10:51Now, you can actually edit tweets for real,
283. 10:53which is really cool, and it's getting better.
284. 10:55But, think back to all of those creator tools
285. 10:57that we just mentioned earlier, and those types of things
286. 11:00would be worth way more than eight bucks a month
287. 11:02to many people, especially people just like me
288. 11:05who create a lot of content
289. 11:07and things that can just go on Twitter
290. 11:09because it unlocks monetization for all types of content.
291. 11:12And that would pay for itself very quickly.
292. 11:14I guess what I'm trying to say
293. 11:15is having a little verified human check mark
294. 11:18next to your name doesn't feel like something
295. 11:22that will be worth $8 to most people,
296. 11:26especially because the benefit
297. 11:27is to everyone else on the platform
298. 11:29and not the person paying.
299. 11:31So, it strikes me as something
300. 11:32that should probably just be free.
301. 11:33But, this has been really interesting to watch.
302. 11:35Right now, there are 400,000 verified users on Twitter.
303. 11:39So, judging from Elon's tweets
304. 11:40because that's kind of all we have to go by,
305. 11:42being verified will be one of the features
306. 11:44looped into Twitter Blue.
307. 11:46So, let's say 100% of them pay eight bucks a month
308. 11:49to keep their badge.
309. 11:50That would be $77,000,000 per year, which sounds like a lot.
310. 11:53But again, just to refresh your memory,
311. 11:55Twitter made about 5,000,000,000 of revenue last year,
312. 11:57and 92% of it was from advertising.
313. 12:00And so, this would just be a drop in the bucket.
314. 12:02But, it sounds like Elon's plan is to have everyone pay,
315. 12:06you know, every real human on Twitter connect a credit card,
316. 12:10pay eight bucks a month, that's their ID,
317. 12:12and then just keep using Twitter like normal.
318. 12:15Which kinda violates my rule number one of the internet,
319. 12:18which is you probably can't charge money
320. 12:20for something that was previously free.
321. 12:22I don't think most people are gonna wanna do that.
322. 12:24I really think that new value added to Twitter
323. 12:27that people would choose to pay for,
324. 12:30like better features, higher quality media,
325. 12:33I think that's the way.
326. 12:34There's a whole thread I'll link below of random ideas
327. 12:37someone just came up with and did mock-ups for,
328. 12:39and some of them are actually really interesting
329. 12:41and I could see Twitter power users
330. 12:42loving some of that stuff.
331. 12:43But like, the eight bucks a month
332. 12:45for a verified human profile
333. 12:47was guaranteed a negative reaction
334. 12:49just because it's new money for something that's not new.
335. 12:52So in summary, I think Twitter Blue right now
336. 12:55is a pretty weak attempt
337. 12:57at getting as many people as possible to pay for Twitter.
338. 13:01And I don't think
339. 13:02there is any amount of cool features you could add
340. 13:04to get most normal people to pay for Twitter.
341. 13:08What I do think they should focus on is a smaller,
342. 13:10higher conversion group of power users and creators,
343. 13:15and then you will need advertiser revenue
344. 13:18to get into that virtuous cycle.
345. 13:19So, I'll just leave you with this chart again.
346. 13:21This is what I think success can look like for Twitter.
347. 13:25Like Twitter is what it is because of the people on Twitter,
348. 13:29as with any other social media platform,
349. 13:31like that's just a fact.
350. 13:32So, I think that's where you jump into this cycle,
351. 13:35by making things, features, and tools,
352. 13:39that those people genuinely want.
353. 13:41And then, crafting the rest of the rules and features
354. 13:44around the behavior that you want works every time.
355. 13:48Like if posting this 10-minute video on Twitter
356. 13:50would cost me eight bucks a month,
357. 13:52where posting this video on YouTube
358. 13:55would actually make me money,
359. 13:57then it's kind of a no brainer.
360. 13:59I'm posting it on YouTube,
361. 14:00and then I'll put a link on Twitter
362. 14:03because that's what the rules and the features incentivize.
363. 14:05So yeah, that's just my two cents.
364. 14:07And hey, maybe Elon's serious about not really caring
365. 14:10about the economics of Twitter at all,
366. 14:12in which case that would actually be totally cool.
367. 14:14But, the $44,000,000,000 aren't gonna pay itself, so.
368. 14:19There you have it.
369. 14:20Thanks for watching.
370. 14:21I'm rooting for you, Twitter.
371. 14:23Catch you on the next one.
372. 14:24Peace.
373. 14:25(gentle rhythmic music fading)