Oh fine, I'll articulate why. Musk doesn't know what he has bought.
He seems to think it's a technology company. It's not. It's an advertising business mixed up with a social platform. Those don't require lots of brains, in fact Twitter is already built and works. The what the likes of Twitter require to be successful is the willingness to carefully navigate a bunch of minefields and come up with compromises that make nobody happy, but keep trouble at a minimum.
Musk is obviously incapable of doing this. He just started, and immediately spooked the advertisers. Then he started whining, and threatening both advertisers and his own employees, apparently not realizing that he has no real power over either.
It's clear that Twitter is going down the drain sooner or later because Musk exceeded the limits of his competence. At this rate I expect him to be hit with fat fines from the EU, demands from various other countries to comply with their rules, piss off advertisers, run into trouble with illegal content of various kinds, and have stability issues and security exploits.
It's not that it offends me so much to have a conservative driven platform. It's that the man is clearly incompetent and flailing, and as amusing as that is to watch, it's clear the platform won't survive it so alternatives are needed.
>It's clear that Twitter is going down the drain sooner or later because Musk exceeded the limits of his competence.
I don't think it's a question of competence. Musk bought a company that was already losing billions, and saddled it with debt and billions of interest payments per year. His recent actions also cost near-term ad-revenue loss, thereby further amplifying losses.
As bad as those things are, in-and-of themselves, they don't represent an existential crisis.
The problem is that he actually cannot afford to float Twitter until such time that the company becomes profitable (if ever). Hence the drastic cost-cutting measures.
> I don't think it's a question of competence. Musk bought a company that was already losing billions, and saddled it with debt and billions of interest payments per year.
That's incompetence
> His recent actions also cost near-term ad-revenue, thereby further amplifying losses.
And so is that.
> As bad as those things are, in-and-of themselves, they don't represent an existential crisis.
Why not? I mean, maybe it'll keep existing for a while still, but given how it's starting, how is it going to get any better? It seems clear that the current trend is steeply downhill. So anybody who thinks alternatives are needed would do well starting to look for them, or starting to work on one.
It may well be. I guess it's a question of semantics. To me his ability to afford a money-losing company is the salient factor, not his chaotic early tenure as 'Chief Twit'.
>> As bad as those things are, in-and-of themselves, they don't represent an existential crisis.
>Why not?
1. Because none of his actions are irreversible.
2. If he acted responsibility, he still would be running a company that is losing billions (plus the extra debt he saddled it with) in a terrible economic climate. I don’t think he can afford it.
> 1. Because none of his actions are irreversible.
They are partially reversible, but definitely not fully reversible. For example, there's no taking away that Musk started his tenure by angering advertisers. He can apologize, he can make amends, but there's no taking away that some amount of the damage will remain, if only because some companies already made new plans, allocated their budget, and aren't about to tell some other company that they changed their mind because Musk said "sorry".
> 2. If he acted responsibility, he still would be running a company that is losing billions (plus the extra debt he saddled it with) in a terrible economic climate. I don’t think he can afford it.
Well, if he couldn't afford it before making things even worse, how is that not an existential crisis?
>if only because some companies already made new plans, allocated their budget, and aren't about to tell some other company that they changed their mind because Musk said "sorry".
How is that 'partially irreversible' ... a bunch of companies paused ad-buys for this quarter or maybe even next year. If Twitter becomes viable next year, you think advertisers wouldn't come back, this year, or next, or year after that?
>Well, if he couldn't afford it before making things even worse, how is that not an existential crisis?
That is the existential crisis. Not the incompetence, the lack of ability to afford Twitter. That would have been the case even if the early Musk tenure wasn't so chaotic.
Not one thing is different since he bought it. Nothing. Literally nothing. Some articulation that carefully explains...nothing about why anyone would be inclined to leave other then "zomg Elon doesn't like woke people noooo!"
He seems to think it's a technology company. It's not. It's an advertising business mixed up with a social platform. Those don't require lots of brains, in fact Twitter is already built and works. The what the likes of Twitter require to be successful is the willingness to carefully navigate a bunch of minefields and come up with compromises that make nobody happy, but keep trouble at a minimum.
Musk is obviously incapable of doing this. He just started, and immediately spooked the advertisers. Then he started whining, and threatening both advertisers and his own employees, apparently not realizing that he has no real power over either.
It's clear that Twitter is going down the drain sooner or later because Musk exceeded the limits of his competence. At this rate I expect him to be hit with fat fines from the EU, demands from various other countries to comply with their rules, piss off advertisers, run into trouble with illegal content of various kinds, and have stability issues and security exploits.
It's not that it offends me so much to have a conservative driven platform. It's that the man is clearly incompetent and flailing, and as amusing as that is to watch, it's clear the platform won't survive it so alternatives are needed.