Twitter Blue will cost more on an iPhone, than through a browser

AppleInsider · December 8, 2022 1:14PM

Twitter is reportedly planning to charge $7 per month for its Twitter Blue subscription, but the company wants to offset fees and will charge users more per month through the App Store.

The on again, off again Twitter Blue subscription, with its controversial verification system, is expected to return from Friday.

According to The Information, some Twitter employees have been told the subscription service will be relaunched with new pricing. Rather than the previous flat-rate $8, it will have two price points.

Users buying the subscription via their iPhone and an in-app purchase on the App Store, it instead will be $11. The difference is likely to be to cover Apple's first-year 30% commission on in-app purchases.

Apple charges 15% fees on a subscription if it is maintained over a full year. There is no word if it will reduce the per-month charge on the iPhone to $9 per month after the first year.

Elon Musk previously railed against the App Store commission as part of what appeared to be a complaint about Apple cutting advertising on Twitter.

It was not clear whether Apple actually paused its Twitter ad spend. However, there has been speculation whether Apple and Google may remove Twitter from their app stores over its announced lack of moderation.

The European Union has warned Elon Musk that it will ban or fine Twitter unless content moderation complies with its forthcoming laws. Tim Cook, however, has said that he is counting on Twitter to keep its word about moderation.

Shortly after also criticising Apple's stance on free speech, Musk was given a tour of Apple Park by Tim Cook.

Musk subsequently claimed that "Tim was clear that Apple never considered" removing Twitter.

Read on AppleInsider

foregoneconclusion · December 8, 2022 2:29PM

Musk offered advertisers a bribe with the ridiculous ad buy incentives and they took it. It's kind of pathetic but that's the business world.

anonymouse · December 8, 2022 2:35PM

Wouldn't the Twitter Blue subscription be considered a real world good or service and thus not required, or allowed, to use Apple's in-app purchase system nor subject to App Store fees?

retrogusto · December 8, 2022 2:53PM

That’s not a great way to treat your best customer. Twitter makes 89% of their revenue from advertising, and in the first quarter of this year, Apple was their biggest advertiser. It would take a whole lot of blue check marks to equal the amount that Apple gives Twitter for advertising. Apple should just cut their Twitter ad budget by 30%.

Nikon8 · December 8, 2022 2:57PM

Why would anyone pay to tweet. it is just stupid

ITGUYINSD · December 8, 2022 3:09PM

retrogusto said:

That’s not a great way to treat your best customer. Twitter makes 89% of their revenue from advertising, and in the first quarter of this year, Apple was their biggest advertiser. It would take a whole lot of blue check marks to equal the amount that Apple gives Twitter for advertising. Apple should just cut their Twitter ad budget by 30%.

It's a win-win. Apple makes 30% off every Twitter user dumb enough to subscribe.

foregoneconclusion · December 8, 2022 3:27PM

Nikon8 said:

Why would anyone pay to tweet. it is just stupid

Social media is primarily a marketing/promotional vehicle. So if you have something to market or promote, it can make sense to pay to tweet. That's just ONE of the ironies of Musk babbling about "free speech" on Twitter. The purpose of Twitter is not to be a town square for the general public. It's to sell things to people.

tomowa · December 8, 2022 3:29PM

Just asking, as I am not a Tesla car user.

Does Tesla sell subscriptions for "enhanced features".

Does Tesla allow 3rd party software/firmware access to its car's operating systems? Or does Tesla control the whole environment?
Is there any irony in Musks position, regarding Apple here?

foregoneconclusion · December 8, 2022 3:36PM

tomowa said: Does Tesla sell subscriptions for "enhanced features".

Tesla has charged people thousands of dollars in advance for features it's never produced.

applguy · December 8, 2022 3:44PM

anonymouse said:

Wouldn't the Twitter Blue subscription be considered a real world good or service and thus not required, or allowed, to use Apple's in-app purchase system nor subject to App Store fees?

There's a difference between physical goods (car) or service (plumbing) and digital goods (blue twitter check mark) or service (Spotify). You can't hold or give the blue check mark you rent forever to someone else to hold or sell at a garage sale in the real world.

anonymouse · December 8, 2022 3:54PM

applguy said:

anonymouse said:

Wouldn't the Twitter Blue subscription be considered a real world good or service and thus not required, or allowed, to use Apple's in-app purchase system nor subject to App Store fees?

There's a difference between physical goods (car) or service (plumbing) and digital goods (blue twitter check mark) or service (Spotify). You can't hold or give the blue check mark you rent forever to someone else to hold or sell at a garage sale in the real world.

Well, you can't do that with any real world service, so I'm not sure, "able to give or sell," is the correct standard. The blue check persists and has utility outside the app, which I think makes it a "real world" good or service. This sounds to me like Musk wants to impose an "Apple Tax" of his own but blame Apple for it.

cropr · December 8, 2022 3:58PM

tomowa said:

Just asking, as I am not a Tesla car user.
Does Tesla sell subscriptions for "enhanced features".
Does Tesla allow 3rd party software/firmware access to its car's operating systems? Or does Tesla control the whole environment?
Is there any irony in Musks position, regarding Apple here?

A more relevant question is: Does Tesla allow other chargers than the Tesla superchargers?. And the answer is YES, so stop whining

mikethemartian · December 8, 2022 4:12PM

tomowa said:

Just asking, as I am not a Tesla car user.
Does Tesla sell subscriptions for "enhanced features".
Does Tesla allow 3rd party software/firmware access to its car's operating systems? Or does Tesla control the whole environment?
Is there any irony in Musks position, regarding Apple here?

I’m not sure but I think they charge a one time fee to unlock features but I don’t think it is an ongoing subscription.

auxio · December 8, 2022 4:14PM

foregoneconclusion said:

Nikon8 said:

Why would anyone pay to tweet. it is just stupid

Social media is primarily a marketing/promotional vehicle. So if you have something to market or promote, it can make sense to pay to tweet. That's just ONE of the ironies of Musk babbling about "free speech" on Twitter. The purpose of Twitter is not to be a town square for the general public. It's to sell things to people.

And the higher level purpose is to collect information about what people say and do in order to build profiles for targeting advertisements (and more nefarious purposes). So it's a double irony for those who worry about free speech and state surveillance. You can speak freely (but no one will see what you say unless you pay) and you're being surveilled constantly by Twitter (for profit) and anyone else who has an interest in building profiles about people (like political groups looking to spread disinformation to people who are most susceptible).

rotateleftbyte · December 8, 2022 6:43PM

tomowa said:

Just asking, as I am not a Tesla car user.
Does Tesla sell subscriptions for "enhanced features".
Does Tesla allow 3rd party software/firmware access to its car's operating systems? Or does Tesla control the whole environment?
Is there any irony in Musks position, regarding Apple here?

Or...
Does Tesla support Apple Car Play OOTB?

I'm not a Twitter user so personally, I hope it crashes and burns in a matter of months along with Truth Social.

dewme · December 8, 2022 7:19PM

As with most things related to the New Twitter with its new Chief Twit, there always has to be a douchebag element to whatever they do. It can no longer be a normal business doing normal business things that have been done by normal business people since the dawn of humans conducting commerce with other humans. Nope, they have to poop on someone's birthday cake to give the Chief Twit his little power adrenaline rush for the day.

Here's the thing, product/service vendors can set their product prices wherever the hell they want to. Price is only one part of the equation. In the traditional 4Ps view of marketing, price is only one of the four Ps. Price is not equal to product cost + profit margin. Price is whatever the product owner wants it to be. Of course product makers who wish to survive, and especially those whose profit is directly tied to product sales, must consider their costs in setting their prices. Some product makers set a price that results in them foregoing profits on one product, e.g., the razor, so they can reap large profits on another (usually related) product, e.g., razor blades.

So what are the product makers costs? It's everything that goes into making the product available for sale, including labor, materials, capital expenditures, services (like the guy who cleans the toilets and vacuums the lobby), travel, pensions, health insurance, workman's comp, utilities, ... and so on and so forth. For companies building products that get sold through Apple's App Store their costs include the cost of having Apple host a virtual storefront and securely distribute their apps to the their customers. Easy peasy, just do the math.

If you're a halfway intelligent businessperson looking to make a profit you're going to factor in your total costs and profit expectations into the price you set for your product. You're probably going to leave room to account for certain contingencies and unknowns so you don't have to be constantly adjusting your prices, like gasoline stations do. Apple's 30% commission which steps down to lower rates at some point is not an "unknown" cost, just like the cost your business is paying for leases, housekeeping, and cafeteria services isn't an unknown. These costs can change and when they do it's up to the product maker to revisit their product pricing model and adjust as necessary to meet their business goals. It's not like Apple sprung their commission requirements on anyone who uses their App Store as a retail outlet.

As long as product vendors have the ability to set their own prices I don't understand why or when a product vendor would feel compelled to make a big public stink about one particular cost of doing business over all others, and especially one that has been at a fixed or declining percentage for many years, rather than just adjusting their prices based on their business realities and cost of doing business. If the housekeeping service that Twitter uses jacks up its service fees because Twitter employees are suddenly punishing the porcelain at astronomical levels now that they effectively live at work, is the Chief Twit going to complain about the extra costs that they are incurring from the vendor they pay to keep their crappers clean? I don't think so. He'll just silently adjust his product/service prices and pass the cost along to customers, or more likely, make the engineers clean the toilets and still jack up the price. Of course his throne will never need to be serviced because he's never expelled anything from inside. It's all still in there with no means of escape.

plymouthpatsfan · December 8, 2022 7:22PM

foregoneconclusion said:

tomowa said: Does Tesla sell subscriptions for "enhanced features".

Tesla has charged people thousands of dollars in advance for features it's never produced.

or turned off and/or "temporarily" dropped features that customers had already paid for.

Appleish · December 8, 2022 7:47PM

Nnnnnnnnnope. Not this. Not Tesla. And stop spending my tax money on Space X, please.

Bankrupt Musk.

danox · December 8, 2022 8:21PM

Nikon8 said:

Why would anyone pay to tweet. it is just stupid

Stephen King “They should pay me”

danox · December 8, 2022 8:31PM

tomowa said:

Just asking, as I am not a Tesla car user.
Does Tesla sell subscriptions for "enhanced features".
Does Tesla allow 3rd party software/firmware access to its car's operating systems? Or does Tesla control the whole environment?
Is there any irony in Musks position, regarding Apple here?

Tesla breaks out some features as line items now, those are now priced extra.

https://www.tesla.com/model3/design#payment

chasm · December 8, 2022 8:43PM

It is perfectly okay for Twitter and other services to charge extra for services subscribed through Apple (or Android, not mentioned in the article but presumably the price will also increase on other platforms) to offset the cost of doing business through those stores, just as the price you pay buying something in a retail store reflects the cost of doing business there.

If Twitter tries to redirect customers to the less-expensive direct system in the app, however, that would cause Cook to unleash the ninjas, as it is a violation of the TOS.

Twitter Blue will cost more on an iPhone, than through a browser

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