[tablespoon]

> I think it just helps to be a user of the product and have a deep understanding for it before you make any changes. Elon used twitter a lot, but in pretty unusual fashion (because he's world famous billionaire) so he really didn't understand what's most valuable part and took it for granted.

And it also doesn't take a genius to make changes a little slower and more conservatively. For instance, in this case they should have at least added ID verification (of the kind Facebook sometimes forces people to do), and only allowed people to verify their real names for $8.

It seems like Musk also got too used to people cutting him slack for his crap at Tesla and SpaceX, but those companies have mission narratives that people can "believe in." That's not the case for Twitter, and it's looking like Musk is going to slam into the ground without that net to catch him.

It also doesn't help that there's a Twitter replacement (Mastodon) waiting in the wings. IIRC, Bad decisions like Musk's killed Digg, because Reddit was there to take the exodus.

[delecti]

> And it also doesn't take a genius to make changes a little slower and more conservatively

This is what gets me. He's basically speedrunning a world-class demonstration of the lesson of Chesterton's fence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...

[strangattractor]

What we have here is a failure to communicate - Musk suffers from Tony Stark Syndrome which is caused by excessive exposure to Ayn Rand novels, Marvel Comics and Twinkie's.

https://watchfuleye.online/whisky70/2017/8/1/the-one-great-m...

[pvaldes]

If twitter is bleeding money so fast, slow changes of direction are not the first choice

[terribleperson]

A substantial portion (more than half?) of its bleeding is a direct result of Musk's purchase of twitter. The debt he introduced is the bulk of it, but it is compounded by a reduction in advertising revenue.

edit: to make this observation into an actual point: I'm not sure that a situation is a good justification when you're the reason for the situation.

[MivLives]

Great quote for this. And a lot of other situations software people find themselves in.

[ryandvm]

The biggest difference between Twitter and every one of Musk's successful companies is that his typical ventures absolutely depend on US federal largesse to survive. Unless Twitter can start selling carbon credits or secure some bloated federal contracts, there is no chance in hell that Twitter is going to be in the black any time soon.

[georgeg23]

Could be like Palantir and provide a bunch of citizen tracking analytics to govt.

If you don't already know Elon's govt scheming, read about Mike Griffin and Elons missile defense contracts with the US DoD.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career

[DoesntMatter22]

This is just completely untrue for Tesla. Carbon credits make up less than 10 percent of Tesla's profit. They had 250 million in carbon credits last quarter and 3.3 billion profit.

[midoridensha]

Government incentives helped them get to their current level of profitability. Not just in the US either: in Norway, for instance, there's a huge environmental tax on gas-burning cars, but EVs are exempt since they don't burn fossil fuel, so Teslas end up being quite cheap by comparison and are therefore very popular there.

You're being disingenuous by claiming carbon credits are the only form of government largesse or incentive.

[DoesntMatter22]

Sure they helped the company, but it's not like they handed them 10 billion dollars. And at this point they make up so little of the cost. Every car company had this same opportunity but they passed it up.

Don't fault Tesla for that as if the government is propping them up. At this point very little of Tesla's money comes from.

You using Norway is disingenuous they have just over half the population of New Jersey. They are incredibly small. Meanwhile Tesla is #1 in all of Europe.

[candiodari]

The Federal government, and state governments, and various EU governments have given tax credits to buyers of Tesla cars since almost the beginning of Tesla.

https://www.tesla.com/blog/what-you-need-know-about-federal-...

https://www.tesla.com/support/incentives

Tesla claims they pay up to 7500 for every Tesla (depending on the time bought), up to 30% + 400$ for every powerwall for example.

[DoesntMatter22]

They give them to all car companies that produce Electric cars.

[willcipriano]

Charge the US government to censor posts like they are currently doing for free?

[system16]

> It also doesn't help that there's a Twitter replacement (Mastodon) waiting in the wings

As much as I want to see Mastodon succeed, I don't see it ever happening. Its biggest feature (multiple instances) is also the biggest reason most users are never going to use it. It's just too confusing for the end user. Also it's bizarre that the one instance that actually has the potential to gain mainstream interest (mastodon.social) is not accepting new invites.

I'd put my money on something new taking Twitter's place way before Mastodon.

[DoesntMatter22]

Everything about mastadon seems pretty bad in that way. You basically just need to clone how twitter works an go from there

[ahMath8]

These days that’s a Put tweet lambda and Get tweet lambda that autoscale with traffic, and copy pasting a copy cat UI from GitHub.

The last decade has been spent making something like Twitter today a simple shell script.

Companies would be better off improving internal customer service for existing users than astroturfing for new users. You know actually build a business rather than rely on hype for simple things the world used to find complex.

[midoridensha]

>I'd put my money on something new taking Twitter's place way before Mastodon.

Something new, like what? When there's a big user exodus from some kind of service or platform, there has to be something for them to flock to right then. When Digg imploded, Reddit was there to absorb the exodus. Right now, Mastodon is there, even if it has significant downsides. Users aren't just going to wait around for something ideal to be built for them.

[toss1]

>> he really didn't understand what's most valuable part and took it for granted.

This is particularly surprising to me also, for a different reason. Since Musk was a key player at PayPal, he should have learned that although the vast majority of users are well-intentioned and harmless, there are a small group of scammers and criminal who MUST be dealt with or they will rapidly bankrupt you.

On Twitter, we must add to the list of scammers & criminals the additional bots, trolls, and pranksters, all of whom can rapidly destroy trust in a community (online or off).

Why he didn't carry that lesson forward to this platform is baffling (unless he's in a contest with Kanye and the FTX crypto guy to see who can create the largest and most rapid-burning money bonfire).

[scotty79]

> Since Musk was a key player at PayPal

That's mostly a legend. In actuality he took some part in some company that got bought by another company which eventually became PayPal.

[toss1]

Although, especially since he still made significant fortune from it, it still seems sufficient exposure to at least understand the concept of a minority of scammers & criminals who must be identified & shut off in real time (maybe even more exposure if he came up through two precursor companies).

Heck, it is something that is already obvious to everyone here, and most of us were never employed in banking or payments operations...

[scotty79]

Elon increasingly looks like a child in the fog whose actions are driven mostly by emotions.