[comex]

It's like peering. If you're that popular, Twitter is providing significant value to you, but you're also providing a lot of value to Twitter by being a reason for people to use the service (i.e. to read your tweets). Katy Perry needs Twitter a whole lot less than Twitter needs Katy Perry. Plus, not everyone popular on Twitter has a lot of money - a recent counterexample is Edward Snowden.

[m52go]

Yeah but I'm sure Katy Perry gets enough out of the service to pay it $10k a year. For example.

Total revenue would be lower, yes, but that should be matched by cost-cutting. These companies' head-counts are bloated compared to the services they offer.

I know there's a lot more to Twitter than the simplistic short-messaging system it seems to be from the outside (speed, scaling, etc)...but does it really need over 4,000 people to run it? I highly doubt it.

[matart]

This sounds like charging someone to bring you business. Katy Perry convinces a lot of people to use twitter and still has to pay to bring in revenue.

If this was the same for car sales, why would anyone recommend cars?

[mosquito242]

Yeah but that's a very risky move. If even 50% of the power users pay, then twitter still loses 50% of it's key content, which costs it users, which then means the remaining power users are less interested in paying and so on.

[notahacker]

$10k a year to keep advertising not sanctioned by Katy Perry's management off her Twitter feed might get a bite or two....