I have an answer for Twitter’s monetisation woes that extend beyond ads. Charge for Verified Accounts. I am certain that celebs would happily pay $50-100k a year as a marketing expense.
There are currently 168,000 Verified Twitter accounts. If 10% of those top accounts could pay $50k/year (which for most, is a business expense), that is $840 million of revenue. At $100k a year, it is $1.68 billion, which is 1.5 times their current revenue.
If you then had a sliding scale for other Verified Accounts, you are easily running with base revenue that is sustainable, with a userbase of fans that are happy, and with those who get the most value out of the platform, paying marketing costs that are easily written off.
Put in measures that protect these people from abuse and harassment. Make us pay to @ those people. Voila, you don’t need bullshit ads, people have to pay to troll, you have those who care about Twitter, supporting Twitter. Make it higher value, not low value with PPC bullshit.
But what would I know, I have only been using it since the beginning and whatnot.