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by flyt 5569 days ago
A 30-minute long TV show is actually only about 21.5 minutes long. The rest is advertising. People will tolerate it if the rest of the content is relevant and engaging.

If the ads are well targeted then they make people even more accepting of them.
2 comments
padobson 5569 days ago
I pay Netflix $9 a month and I have no commercials to speak of. What is the marginal ad revenue of every user on Twitter? If it's <$1/mo then there should be a premium, ad-less Twitter available for purchase at $1.99/mo.
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MatthewPhillips 5569 days ago
You're not accounting to the effect a premium service has on marginal ad revenue per user. It goes down as the people with disposable income (the most desirable demographic) opt out of ads.
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robryan 5568 days ago
I bet th effect of even of the most engaged users isn't worth $10/month in ad revenue. Although I think there would be an irrational element in the pitch of reach the whole Twitter userbase vs reach the users that haven't paid.
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bmj 5568 days ago
You also don't (yet, at least) pay for "new" content. People sitting through commercials (or paying for cable) get content before it is even available to you.
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padobson 5568 days ago
Such is the nature of disruptive technologies. The "yet" in your comment speaks volumes on the impending doom of traditional, multi-channel television. The core value of Twitter, however, is the fresh and organic nature of the information flowing through it. Netflix relies much more on quality than newness. The major difference here is that advertisers are paying to have information artificially inserted into the Twitter-verse where the core value is the organic nature of the content. A subscription greater than marginal ad revenue would greatly increase the amount of organic info on Twitter (both to subscribers and free users) which would lead to more users which would lead to more overall ad revenue.
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rubergly 5568 days ago
I don't think this argument really applies to TV, where viewers really haven't had any voting power about ads. Until very recently, they either watched TV or didn't, and I doubt people ever stopped watching TV and stopped digesting TV media because of ads.
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