Twitter is looking for ways to make more money. Charging you to use Twitter probably isn’t going to be one of them.
Twitter might charge for Tweetdeck, but Twitter itself will probably remain free
Some people want the company to expand its business beyond advertising.
Asa Mathat
Twitter COO and CFO Anthony Noto dismissed the idea Thursday that Twitter might one day charge users for the service. Recode’s Peter Kafka asked Noto, who spoke onstage at Code Conference, whether Twitter would simply charge all users to use the product, an idea first suggested by research firm MoffettNathanson.
Noto said that offering a premium service via Tweetdeck, Twitter’s more professional-focused app, might make sense, but added that charging for Twitter doesn’t really align with its four core product values: Being fast, being broad, being personalized and generating discussion.
It’s hard to accomplish that last part when the service isn’t free.
“Tweetdeck may be an opportunity for us to add a bunch of premium services to it to develop a subscription revenue stream,” Noto acknowledged. “But I am really confident the value proposition we deliver advertisers is stronger than it’s ever been.”
CEO Jack Dorsey said recently that the company has considered — and would continue to consider — a subscription model that provides some extra features or services for a fee. But he too dismissed the idea of charging for Twitter outright.
“We do believe that there is a real importance that Twitter is accessible to everyone in the world no matter what their economic stature is and where they are in life, so the general case has been to make Twitter free and open,” he said.
Watch his full interview at Recode’s Code Conference below.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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