This Elon Twitter tactic will backfire.

It’s stupid to opine on rumors. Especially rumors involving a company run by one of the most erratic individuals on the planet. Even if this rumor is 100% true and absolutely Elon’s plan from here, there’s every chance he wakes up tomorrow with a new plan. Yet here I go.

This is a bad idea:

A lot of thoughts here. For one, am I using Twitter wrong? I would love to know the percentage of Twitter users who come anywhere close to using 200 direct messages per day. Is this really a common thing? Also, remember when messaging was all the rage and pre-Elon Twitter was trying to morph into a messaging app? Yeah, so much for that.

And I do get that Elon needs to figure out how to monetize Twitter, something that no one has really done successfully in the company’s history. (Perhaps something to think about before paying $44B to buy the company?) He has to come up with $1 billion in interest payments on that debt annually, and crypto ads just aren’t going to cut it. If he could get us all to pay to use the app, aka Twitter Blue, his debt mountain gets a little easier to climb.

And yes, many of us tweet too much. A weird, modern social media version of the tragedy of the commons. Tweets are free, and so we overuse the resource. I’m willing to bet most of my Twitter followers (follow me here, at least for now!) would say I could improve by thinking more about what I tweet instead of just hitting “send.”

But these caps will have the effect of sucking the lifeblood out of Twitter, and hasten the exodus from the platform.

Twitter works because it is a conversation with the world. True, not all tweets are profound. But replies, back-and-forths, the stupid gifs (now subject to a one per day limit?) and lame jokes make it human. It is the back and forth that makes it a conversation. It is what makes it the town square of the new millennium. Limit the number of tweets, and limit the dialogue. It becomes more of a billboard for calculated announcements.

Just one small example of what will be lost… I am a lifelong supporter of a little second division English football club that doesn’t have the massive following around the U.S. the way the Big Six do. It is hard for me, sitting in Atlanta, to find someone to talk Watford FC with. (Former club owner and president-for-life Elton John is a part time Atlanta resident, but he never returns my calls.)

But every Saturday at 10am Eastern, I can load Twitter along with the game feed and be in a virtual pub with thousands of others from around the world to talk about the game. To live it together.

That dies in a 20-tweet world.

I’d miss it. But I am not sure I’d miss it enough that I’d pay to get it back. Especially in a world where it seems more likely than not there will be some other free outlet to gravitate towards. (I’m still a little shocked Google hasn’t done a Twitter clone just as one last stab at social.)

It might not be the same as Twitter. It might not be as good as Twitter. But a few years ago, I wasn’t used to Twitter. I’ll get used to whatever follows.

Which isn’t to say Musk shouldn’t try to find ways to make money off of Twitter. He desperately needs to find ways to make money off of Twitter. I have no right to demand free unfettered access. But I am under no obligation to pay instead of walking away.

I’m sure the moves, if enacted, will drive some to pay for Blue. But I’m also sure a large number of people will not. And if so, the lifeblood of Twitter, the human conversation, will begin to fade. The town square takes a big hit.

Elon made a mistake buying Twitter for the price he paid. And now all of his options appear to be some form or another of doubling down on that mistake. Perhaps at the end of the day he has concluded this is the least bad option (although I think clearly selling $12B more of Tesla is the easiest option). But make no mistake. It will lead to a smaller, less interesting Twitter in the future.

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