Paid social, no the other kind

What features USERS actually pay for plus my Oscars predicts

March 10, 2023

Hi

I’m going a little long on paid social features (not ads paid social, like stuff users actually pay for), so we’re just gonna start with a photo from Jennifer Coolidge’s W Magazine photoshoot from the other week because I can’t stop thinking about it.

Jennifer Coolidge stands on a smoky battlefield surrounded by the bodies of fallen couture power rangers. She’s dressed like Anna Wintour meets Rita Repulsa in a shoulder-length black bob wig, striking red hat, and a green & red Gucci coat. She wields a battle scythe. Her lips are pursed. Her eyes are obscured by reflective sunglasses. She appears victorious. 

Platform Updates

The Rest of Meta 

TikTok

Twitter

YouTube

Discord

Reddit

LinkedIn 

Twitch 

Amazon 

Culture Movers 

Film & TV

Music 

Gaming 

AI 

Paying for social media 

I paid for Twitter Blue when it first came out. No, not when Elon relaunched it, when it actually first came out in 2021. Being super dyslexic, I liked the idea of having an “undo tweet” delayed send to help me catch the occasional typo. I ended up ignoring this buffer of time and hitting “send now” most of the time, so it didn’t really work, but I wanted to try it out along with some of the other features. Most importantly, I liked Twitter as a company at the time. I found the service valuable and could afford to put up a few of my own dollars to access some power user features. 

I canceled it after a few months when I realized I wasn’t really using any of the features I paid for, but in principle, I was open to the idea of paying for a social network. I think a lot of people are. The social network companies just don’t seem to understand what we want to pay for. 

Elon’s Twitter Blue is mostly about buying your Blue Check. This transaction completely breaks the value of having verified users (you’d need multiple check types to easily sort “I paid” from “I’m the famous person I say I am”) and is viewed in many circles as a way to self-identify as an Elon simp with no spine. Meta’s verification program seems to be about acknowledging how bad (or nonexistent) their customer service is and finding a way to improve it for a subset of users. Both of these feel gross.

There are social sites that do make money directly from users vs indirectly through advertising. If Twitter or Meta want any chance of building real non-advertising revenue, I think they should start with these examples. 

YouTube Premium 

I pay for this one and love it. YouTube ads suck. The quality ranges from TV-quality to a slideshow your mom’s friend made for the HOA meeting. Plus, most big YouTubers have sponsor shoutouts within their videos on top of the platform ads. Paying to skip the actual ads (still gotta fast forward through the sponsor shoutouts) makes YouTube so much more enjoyable. Elon’s Twitter Blue supposedly reduces the number of ads you see, but I have no objective way of verifying that (cause I don’t trust their self-reporting now that he’s in charge). I’d consider a Meta subscription if it helped cut down on the Instagram ads. Worth considering, Mark. 

Tumblr Gags & Merch 

Did you know Tumblr users can give each other crabs? A 2022 April Fool's day joke went over so well with the site’s users that they turned it into a paid feature. 

Screenshot from the Tumblr Store of the “Tumblr Dashboard Crabs” Gift item. For $2.99, you can pay to give another user a “crab widget” 24 hours that spawns pixelated crabs. 

Tumblr has other digital gag features like their own checkmarks along with a merch store full of references to long-running jokes on the site. (Side Note: someone please get me the Color of The Sky Tumbler) You can also purchase ad-free access to the site (Trend Alert). 

Reddit Coins 

Reddit has a virtual currency (no, it’s not crypto) that’s used to purchase awards for other users. This makes sense for Reddit’s community focus; being able to recognize when other users share a post or comment you find especially valuable actually means something in the smaller interest-driven subreddit communities. You can buy coins ad-hock or get them as part of a Reddit Premium subscription which also comes with, guess what, ad-free access to Reddit. 

So obviously, I think eliminating or at least reducing the volume of ads is something that gets users to open their wallets. I work in advertising and think it can be really interesting and add value for users when done well. I also know that many of the advertisers using these platforms don’t care about quality or user benefit, just media efficiency. I think most users also understand the trade-off of social sites. I get access for free, you charge money to show me ads. If we start paying to use these sites AND we still see all the ads we did at the free level, it feels like the platform is double dipping. 

The other important factor for Reddit and Tumblr is how these features encourage users to connect with each other. Who hasn’t sent someone a gag gift based on an inside joke? Or wanted to give someone a little gift for going above and beyond helping out with a club or community group? It’s these special little extensions of how people already use the sites that feel both grounded in the community there and like an actual value add for those users. Not “hey I guess if you’re paying we might actually help you get your account back if it’s hacked.” 

Oscar predicts real fast before we go

*big inhale* 

I think Everything Everywhere All At Once gets Best Picture. Ke Huy Quan is a lock for Best Supporting Actor (two Banshees in the category cancel each other out). It’s Cate or Michelle for Best Actress though if Andrea wins Oscars campaigning next year will be MESSY. I’m still unsure about Best Actor (category where I’ve seen the fewest relevant movies). Naatu Naatu gets Best Original Song. Sorry Gaga and Rihanna. I can see the Academy giving Angela Bassett Best Supporting Actress as more of a lifetime achievement Oscar but I can also see the distaste for Marvel movies and love of Everything shifting the vote. People are rooting for Jamie Lee Curtis but I gotta be honest Stephanie Hsu gave one of the best performances of the year in Everything so I’m rooting for her. 

*long exhale* 

Anyway, be kind to each other and have a fun weekend.