The Business Model Makes (or Breaks) the Business

How Twitter Ended Up in a Cage of Its Own Making

It’s interesting how the choice of business model, or even the mindset around what type of business you are, ends up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I wonder if there has ever been a more dramatic example than Twitter of this dissonance where the choice of business / model leads to a drastically different outcome than what was otherwise possible.

There’s been lots of chatter recently about Twitter adding a paid subscription, and a lot of the negative reactions make sense from a consumer perspective - consumers who view Twitter as a media company don’t like the idea of switching from an ads based model to a subscription model. It’s like if your local newspaper suddenly said they were going to gate premium content ala the NY Times - what a bait and switch?!?

A subscription service is not the issue; it’s who the subscriber base is. Twitter (or it’s new overlords) want consumers to pay. When I first heard the news, I hoped it was meant for creators.

The entire issue here is that Twitter …