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by wnevets 1318 days ago
That is because most Twitter users knew Musk would ruin what made Twitter Twitter. Twitter users just assumed the process of "muskifying" Twitter would be subtle and over the course of years. Watching him speed run the destruction of a $44 Billion company in a matter weeks has been absolutely shocking.
2 comments
pb7 1318 days ago
Twitter is a cesspool so ruining what it is is a positive thing. It cannot get worse from here. At worst, it dies; at best, it returns to its former glory circa 2012. Both sound like wins to me.
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wnevets 1318 days ago
If what you say is true then paying $44 Billion sounds like a huge mistake.
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pb7 1318 days ago
It's a huge undertaking, that's for sure, which is probably why Musk wanted to back out. But $44B may seem like pocket change if it can get Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok level engagement and monetization. Twitter has been stagnant for a decade and the rot has set in.
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throwaway82388 1318 days ago
That may or may not be true, it's all unclear. All I know for certain is that the people commenting have no idea either.
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wnevets 1318 days ago
> That may or may not be true, it's all unclear.

It has already been proven Twitter will stop being the Twitter its users have enjoyed for the past decade. You are free to argue Twitter will be better for it but there is absolutely no disputing the old Twitter is dead.

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throwaway82388 1318 days ago
I haven't heard a single proclamation on this that isn't likely to be reversed at some point in the near future. People may quit using Twitter in protest and come back in a week. Or they may all leave for good. Or they may join mastodon, or whatever. Remember the mass Facebook departure to ello?

The point I was making is that nobody seems to think any particular thing, other than that which can be post-rationalized from their feelings, pro or anti Musk. The whole thing has the loosened-reality-grip feel of a culture war battle.

> Firing the leadership and a massive percentage of the workforce at once changes who the company is. I am not entirely sure why this needs to be explained.

Sure. QED. But not a point related to mine.

> That just means what you wrote is not related to anything I wrote

See parent post.

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wnevets 1318 days ago
Firing the leadership and a massive percentage of the workforce at once changes who the company is. I am not entirely sure why this needs to be explained.
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wnevets 1318 days ago
> Sure. QED. But not related to anything I wrote.

That just means what you wrote is not related to anything I wrote

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throwaway82388 1318 days ago
I've seen it remarked and it seems generally agreed upon that Twitter was overstaffed. The extent to which that was true is unclear, because whether Twitter's service meaningfully degrades or not remains to be seen. There's an $8 blue subscription being floated, but otherwise, to what extent the new leadership will change the core service remains to be seen. Whether power users sustain a revolt or exodus remains to be seen.

Dorsey left, didn't he? There's been some fairly major executive turnover over the years. Twitter sort of hummed along, didn't it?

You remarked, hyperbolically I'd say, that he speed ran the destruction of a $40 billion-whatever acquisition in mere weeks. That may turn out to be true. But it hasn't happened yet. I think many people want this to be true, but this is an exceptional event and is hard to make dispassionate predictions about. It's possible, but improbable that it'll take the shape of Newscorp's myspace acquisition, or Verizon's yahoo acquisition. Those were services that were already in steep decline. I don't know for sure, but Twitter appears to be relatively stable when it comes to user activity.

Overall, I think the prognostication around this acquisition has been inflamed by culture war biases.

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wnevets 1318 days ago
> You remarked, hyperbolically I'd say, that he speed ran the destruction of a $40 billion-whatever acquisition in mere weeks. That may turn out to be true. But it hasn't happened yet. I think that's because the prognostication around this acquisition has been inflamed by culture war biases.

You have already agreed with me on this in a different comment. The pre Musk version of Twitter no longer exist, it has been destroyed. Musk has destroyed it. Whether or not the brand name of Twitter continues to exist or be popular is yet to be determined but Twitter as we knew it is dead.

The Atari brand name and intellectual property continues to exist but that pioneering video game company hasn't existed for decades

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