&gt;&gt;&gt; why not just charge the superusers with tens of thousands of followers, like Mr. Jones, who really do get some tangible benefit from the service?<p>I&#x27;d go the other way.  I don&#x27;t think the concept of charging people for being successful on a social media platform has legs.  I&#x27;d instead attach micropayments to all the fish who want to follow various celebs and such.  Say 1c&#x2F;month to follow Lady Gaga.  Then we&#x27;ll see exactly how much use these feeds are to consumers.  Or this could be done through a premium concept, such as delaying tweets to&#x2F;from non-premium subscribers by a few minutes.