Now get paid for your tweets.
Twitter’s new Tip Jar adds fuel to the creator economy
You’ve tweeted to converse with your followers. Conducted polls to get insights on the new idea you’re working on. Even experimented with Spaces to connect with some like minded people. But until now, that’s all Twitter was — a medium to build your network and broadcast your ideas.
Now, you can get paid for your tweets.
In a move to allow creators to monetise their platform, Twitter announced a new feature on May 6th, the Tip Jar (image shown below). This Tip Jar will sit right next to your follow button and allow your audience to patronise your work.
Twitter is currently testing this feature, with a select group of creators, journalists, experts and non-profits receiving it. Twitter doesn’t take any cut on these tips. So what does this feature mean for Twitter?
The Tip Jar not just gives Twitter a new dimension compared it its social media competitors, but also pitches it as a direct competitor in a new category with the likes of Patreon, Ko-fi, and Buy Me A Coffee
The Good
Well, a lot of creators already use Twitter to monetise their tweets — just outside of Twitter. They typically add a link to their Patreon or vie for follows on other platforms (such ass Buy Me A Coffee, Ko-Fi, SoundCloud) where their audience can turn into paying supporters. The tip jar allows Twitter to be the space for patronage, thus keeping both the creator and their audience on the app and creating a more holistic ecosystem for the creator economy.
This is in line with Twitter strategy to be the fuel the creator economy, first by adding Spaces, and now this.
The Bad
With the rollout of this feature, a lot of users are complaining about the security issues. While paying via Paypal, one of the mediums of payment to the tip jar, the receiver can see the home address of the sender.
Another user discovered that using Paypal revealed their email address to the reveiver even if no transaction took place.
Although Twitter has addressed this issue, users are still waiting for some clearer resolution of this issue.
The Ugly
First, it is unclear whether Twitter is avoiding taking a cut of the tips just during this launch-and-test phase, or if its intending to make this a blanket policy.
Second, the very fact that the sender decides the amount of the tip can lead to bias in content produced. Rather than leading to a truly democratised creator community, this can skew content to cater to the audience with larger disposable incomes. Thus not every viewer has one vote on the content, but the votes of those who can pay larger sums have more weight.
The Tip Jar not just gives Twitter a new dimension compared to its social media competitors, but also pitches it as a direct competitor in a new category with the likes of Patreon, Ko-fi, and Buy Me A Coffee. It’s hard to say how this competition will shape up, as Tip Jar is still developing and we can expect to see more from it in the upcoming weeks.
For now though, creators on Twitter have an additional source of income.
