You may no longer charge users to listen to live Spaces chats on Twitter. According to The Information, the social media behemoth has “paused” its Ticketed Spaces pilot indefinitely. The change would allow Twitter to focus on refining the “core Spaces experience,” according to the firm. It is unclear how many qualified hosts used the service.
Three months after unveiling the functionality, the company began public testing of Ticketed Spaces in August of last year. It was essentially a means for authors to hide audio discussions behind a paywall. An industry expert may give a TED-style lecture from home, while a celebrity could conduct conversations with their most ardent admirers. Notably, Twitter’s potential profit was quite low – it would require only a 3% reduction from sales below $50,000 and a 20% cut from demand over that. Even if that charge included Apple and Google payments, it still meant that hosts would keep the majority of the income.
This isn’t to imply Twitter is avoiding Spaces in general. The firm is experimenting with live chat assistance within Communities and is working on concepts such as themed stations and daily digests. However, the demise of Ticketed Spaces coincides with Clubhouse (the inspiration for Spaces) revising its approach and laying off employees. The live audio chat field is just not as hot as it was during the early pandemic, which may make it more difficult to attract paying customers.
What happens next is unknown. While the demise of Ticketed Spaces is unrelated to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the new CEO has pledged substantial changes to the firm as he attempts to transform it into a “town square” while increasing its bottom line. We don’t anticipate paid conversations to return, but they’re not entirely extinct.
