The hashtag #RIPTwitter has been widespread on the social media platform as users criticized the new feature, Super Follows.
#RIPTwitter trends on the site
Twitter announced a payment feature today, called Super Follows, which will enable users to charge their followers for access to additional content. This includes bonus tweets, joining a community group, a newsletter subscription, or a badge showing your support.
It will allow people to restrict their posts behind a paywall so that only paying followers will be able to see them. A mockup screenshot of the feature showed a user offering followers a variety of content by charging a $4.99 per month subscription fee. That could have a supporter badge, an exclusive newsletter, deals and discounts, and also community access.
The feature was released for investors during Twitter Analyst Day 2021 and pitched as a way to provide “monetary incentive models for creators and publishers to be directly supported by their audience.” For Twitter, it is a method to let creators and publishers get paid directly by their fans.
Direct payment tools have become rapidly essential for creators particularly in the past few years. Patreon, Facebook, YouTube, and even GitHub have all rolled out direct creator payment features. Twitter will likely take a share in the payments as it has been signaling subscription features to build a new source of revenue. It has not yet mentioned how much that fee would be.
Users’ reaction to the new feature
Unfortunately, Twitter users are not really pleased with this idea and suddenly #RIPTwitter started trending on the site. People came up with different memes to share their reactions after this announcement.
“Im sorry but nobody’s tweets are that important for me to pay for them #RIPTwitter” Twitter User
“Twitter really thinks i’m gonna pay to read other people’s tweets? #RIPTwitter” Twitter User
While others said all they wanted was an ‘Edit’ button – which CEO Jack Dorsey has said the company will “probably never do”.
Twitter also announced a new feature called Communities, which seems like its take on Facebook Groups. People can create and join groups around specific interests allowing them to see more tweets related to those topics. But Twitter has not given any timeline for the launch of these two features. Twitter added them to the “what’s next” list for its platform during a presentation for analysts and investors this afternoon.
