每天一篇经济学人 | Twitter 推特（2022年第94期）

Twitter is no longer a public company, but it is being run in a more public way than ever before. Elon Musk, who took the social network private on October 27th at a cost of $44bn and immediately installed himself as its temporary chief executive, has been developing his plans for the firm through the medium of tweets at all times of day and night.

推特不再是一家上市公司，但它的运营方式比以往任何时候都更加公开。10月27日，埃隆·马斯克以440亿美元的价格将这家社交网络公司私有化，并立即就任其临时首席执行官。他一直在通过推特媒介，不分昼夜地为公司制定计划。

Mr Musk, who said he was buying Twitter to protect free speech in “the de facto public town square”, tweeted on his first full day in charge that the company would set up a “content moderation council”. Outsourcing moderation dilemmas to an independent board, as Facebook has since 2020, would be no bad thing. One of the chief concerns about Mr Musk’s ownership of Twitter is that the platform could be leant on by anyone with leverage over his other, larger businesses. Tesla, Mr Musk’s carmaker (and main source of wealth), has a factory in Shanghai and last year made a quarter of its revenue in China, whose public squares are hardly free.

马斯克表示，他收购推特是为了保护“事实上的公共城市广场”的言论自由。他在上任第一天就发推文称，该公司将成立一个“内容审核委员会”。就像Facebook自2020年以来所做的那样，将审核困境外包给独立董事会并非坏事。人们对马斯克拥有推特的主要担忧之一是，任何对他的其他更大业务有影响力的人都可能利用这个平台。马斯克的汽车制造商(也是主要的财富来源)特斯拉(Tesla)在上海有一家工厂，去年有四分之一的收入来自中国，而中国的公共广场几乎没有免费的。

Yet the focus of Mr Musk’s first week in charge was not moderation but money. His acquisition was funded with about $13bn of debt. Interest rates are rising and the ad market, which provides nearly all of Twitter’s revenue, is falling. Some advertisers are especially nervous of the new Musk-owned Twitter: ipg Mediabrands, a giant media buyer, recommended on October 31st that clients pause their spending on Twitter while the dust settled.

然而，马斯克上任第一周的重点不是审核，而是钱。收购的资金来自约130亿美元的债务。利率在上升，为推特提供几乎全部收入的广告市场也在下滑。一些广告主对马斯克旗下的新推特特别紧张: 媒体收购巨头IPG Mediabrands在10月31日建议客户在尘埃落定前暂停在推特上的支出。

To cut costs Mr Musk appears to have started a round of lay-offs, which is probably overdue. Last year Twitter had 1.5 employees for every $1m in revenue, compared with 0.6 at Meta, Facebook’s owner. At the same time he hopes to bring in more users with features including the resurrection of Vine, a decade-old app that beat TikTok to the short-video craze but which Twitter allowed to wither.

为了削减成本，马斯克似乎已经开始了一轮裁员，而这一轮裁员可能早就应该进行了。去年，推特每100万美元收入就有1.5名员工，相比之下，Facebook的母公司Meta只有0.6名员工。与此同时，他希望通过Vine的复兴等功能吸引更多用户。Vine是一款已有十年历史的应用，在短视频热潮中击败了TikTok，但推特却任由其衰落了。

The most radical plan, though, is to boost revenues by weaning Twitter partially off ads and onto subscriptions. Users will be able to pay $8 a month (or another amount depending on their whereabouts, see chart) to see half as many ads, post long audio and video clips and get priority for their own tweets in other people’s replies and search results.

然而，最激进的计划是让推特摆脱部分广告业务，并走向订阅业务来增加收入。用户将可以每月支付8美元(或其他金额，取决于他们的位置，见图表)，观看半数的广告，发布长音频和视频剪辑，并在其他人的回复和搜索结果中提高自己的推文的优先级。

Mr Musk characterised this as a democratic alternative to the “lords & peasants system”, in which Twitter awards blue badges verifying the identity of “notable” tweeters. Increasing the number of verified users may help reduce spam. But prioritising tweets that are paid for, over ones that are good, may worsen the user experience. And charging audiences risks driving them to other social platforms that are free. As Stephen King, a blue-badged novelist, tweeted in an exchange with Mr Musk: “Fuck that, they should pay me.”

马斯克称这是“领主与农民制度”的民主替代。在“领主与农民制度”中，推特会颁发蓝色徽章，以核实“知名”推特用户的身份。增加认证用户的数量可能有助于减少垃圾邮件。但是，将付费推文置于优质推文之上，可能会恶化用户体验。向观众收费可能会把他们推到其他免费的社交平台上。正如有蓝色徽章的小说家史蒂芬•金在与马斯克的交流中发推文所说:“ 扯淡，他们应该付钱给我。”

Subscriptions may kick off another argument. Among users who subscribe via the Twitter app, a cut of ongoing monthly fees will go to the app store in question: 15% in the case of Google and up to 30% in the case of Apple. Companies that rely on subscriptions, like Spotify, or in-app purchases, like Epic Games, have long complained about this app-store tax. In Mr Musk, Apple and Google face another opponent—one who is armed with the world’s loudest megaphone.

订阅可能会引发另一场争论。在通过推特app订阅的用户中，每月持续费用的一部分分成将流向相关应用商店: 谷歌的提成为15%，苹果的提成最高为30%。依赖订阅的公司，如Spotify，或依赖应用内购买的公司，如Epic Games，其长期以来一直抱怨这种应用商店税。在马斯克身上，苹果和谷歌面临着另一个对手——一个手持世界上最响亮的扩音器的人。