After 10 years, whoever wants to be on Twitter are probably already on it

Twitter is struggling financially and faced with a flat user growth . There are a number of steps Twitter has taken to make the platform more user friendly, in hopes of attracting and retaining new users. These include the ability to retweet oneself, larger gifs, a night mode, an easier process for verified accounts and better handling of news stories. Twitter will not budge when it comes to introducing a feature that will allow the editing of a Tweet though. However, Twitter is a mature platform, it was one five years ago, and the social network cannot keep adding users forever.

https://twitter.com/twitter/status/757561453079474178

Last year, then Twitter CEO Dick Costolo resigned , and named Jack Dorsey as his successor and interim CEO. Dorsey’s CEO post soon became permanent , and he has been trying to revitalise the company ever since. However, these changes took place after Twitter had already reached historic lows when it came to increasing the number of active users in a month. Twitter had started in 2006. The rate at which it attracts new users to the platform has been falling since 2011. The total number of active users might be increasing, but still Twitter might be approaching the saturation point of how many people even want to use the service in its current form. Here is a chart from Statista that shows Twitter’s failure when it comes to increasing user growth.

Every online platform has its own network of users, who consume content in a particular way. There is also a kind of content that works in this created ecosystem. Comparing Snapchat or Instagram to Twitter is not fair, as they are very different mediums. Instagram is about photos and small videos, and this is something that anyone interested in a visual medium can participate in. Instagram is still growing, but after 10 years Twitter has a limited scope for further growth. It is struggling to explain to non users what Twitter is for, but is being active on a microblogging platform an essential part of the daily lives of everyone?

Twitter is for those who want direct, unfiltered access to the sources that interest them. It is for taking up hacktivism campaigns. It will continue to make the news, every day. Most people in the world may be able to recognize Twitter, but using it to update occasionally without consuming the tweets is not a very engaging usage scenario. You cannot expect everyone to be on Twitter, following the latest updates with such intensity. Now everyone has the time or intention to track trends and participate in the discussions. YouTube cannot expect everyone in the world to start producing YouTube videos. News cannot always be always consumed in 140 characters or less. Compare and contrast our coverage of Tesla with the Twitter account of Elon Musk .