1. I keep seeing people complaining about Twitter making some features Blue only. Frankly, this is the right direction for social media. The algos are designed to keep you on site for as long as possible. Why?
2. Social media revenue is based almost exclusively on allowing advertisers to target you and the longer you're on site, the more ads that can be served to you.
3. What's the best way to keep someone on site? Make them angry! "According to Haugen, Facebook prioritizes engagement above all else. The more people interact with content on Facebook, the more...
4. ...ads they will see. Facebook's algorithms are tuned for this, and it means inflammatory content gets boosted. It's easy to make people angry, and angry people click." extremetech.com/internet/327855-whistleblower-facebook-is-designed-to-make-you-angry
5. From another article: "But is Twitter configured to keep the anger flowing? 'I don’t know about intentional design,' says Balick. 'What I do know is that hot emotions...
6. that set hearts racing, such as anger, fear and sex, tend to be more contagious.' If these topics tend to get passed around more, it’s likely that algorithms will exacerbate the contagion." sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/why-social-media-makes-us-so-angry-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/
7. So, by shifting Twitter to a freemium (it's free, but you have to pay for premium features), Elon is actually doing something that might fundamentally make social better - wean the business model off of advertising which incentivizes algos that keep you on site and angry.
8. If the business model were to shift so that free users got limited use - limited engagement, limited views of tweets, limited DMs, etc. - then eventually the primary revenue stream can move to paying customers instead of advertising.
9. If that happens, then social media sites are no longer incentivized to keep you on site and angry, so they could change the algos to serve you things that make you happy, so that when you walk away you think, "that was a nice experience, I'm glad I'm here" instead of...
10. "I need to login again soon to make sure I correct everyone and fight for what I know is right." Imagine being served puppies instead of bombs. How much happier would you be? How would that affect your mood throughout the day?
11. Remember, if you aren't paying for a service, you're the product. Switching to a freemium model makes social the product instead of you, and I think that's a great thing.