[dcchambers]

> What's going on? What's the bigger trend that's causing all these platforms to go so user-hostile?

These companies need/want to start making money. Either due to investors wanting a return on their investment (Reddit IPO, Amazon buying Twitch), or poor decisions which have lead to lots of debt (Elon buying Twitter). Companies can't get free/cheap loans any more since interest rates are high.

Many of these social media companies all followed the tried-and-true "embrace, extend, extinguish" methodology... Offer a free/cheap product until you gain the network effect that kills your competitors, then crank up the prices to turn a profit.

[monnok]

Inflation and rising interest rates sure seem like they can explain so much of the puzzle... especially timing.

But Twitter is an especially interesting piece of that puzzle. It seems to be immolating itself in a deliberate enshitification, closely mirroring every other mega site - yet I doubt it can be related to debt in any way.

I don’t think we can just shrug and chalk it up to a poor decision by eccentric Elon, either. There are only a handful of mega sites. Some (Meta) have had bots between users for a long time. Some (TikTok) were born that way. The rest, including Twitter, seem hellbent on racing to get bots between us as fast as they can.

I think this undermines the debt-urgency argument. I suspect it, instead, highlights a recent growth spurt in the market value for mega sites with bots between users. We’re getting bots everywhere, not because time’s up and bots were the best idea they had, but because bots are exploding in value. We might even look back and shake our heads because Elon so clearly underpaid for Twitter.