Yes, I would pay for Twitter
A few weeks ago there was an interesting discussion on Twitter when Cracked claimed no one would be paying for Twitter. There are actually a few things I would be paying for:
- access to a timeline without ads
- a chronological sorted timeline in Twitters‘ own app
- editing Tweets
- a proper API supporting all features
It is hard to tell how much I would be willing to pay in the long run. But somewhere between $5 and $10 per month would be the maximum.
With the announcement of an API rework some of this might be on the table. I would even be okay if the features I care about are part of Tweetbot charging me a monthly fee and passing part of it to Twitter. Just let me pay for the service somehow and give me the Tweetbot experience.
Remember when Twitter messed up developers the last time, shut down API access and treated anyone providing a better Twitter experience to users than they were able to with their completely broken, ad-loaded client as criminals stealing revenue? Would you be willing to bet on them and invest time and money building on their platform again?
I am no stranger to paying for services which make some people question my sanity (considering I am also paying for YouTube Premium). I regularly complain about free services making their users the product. Once I start being a paying customer, I expect to be treated as exactly that: A customer. But here is the catch - I trust neither Google nor Twitter to see it the same way.