5 ms·

Dorsey joins a long list of founders who were ousted (effectively or actually) or it simply became too uncomfortable to stay [1] who then go on to criticize the

by cletus 5y ago

Dorsey joins a long list of founders who were ousted (effectively or actually) or it simply became too uncomfortable to stay [1] who then go on to criticize their former empire. 9 times out of 10 I find such criticism to be completely self-serving (eg to promote their new venture or agenda), a product of bitterness at the exit, a chance to take a swipe at the powers-that-be or a combination thereof. Twitter's developer API followed a typical pattern: do anything you can to get traction for your platform. This includes being "open" to encourage developers to build stuff on your platform. Then, when you don't need them anymore, ditch them. From a purely business point of view, he wasn't wrong for doing it. It just surprises me that anyone is still shocked when this happens again (and again... and again...). Those who are still bitter at getting locked out will champion this quote of course. Take this quote: > “IN THE BEGINNING, TWITTER WAS SO OPEN THAT MANY SAW THE POTENTIAL TO BECOME A DECENTRALIZED INTERNET STANDARD, SUCH AS THE SMTP (EMAIL SENDING) PROTOCOL. FOR A WHOLE HOST OF REASONS, ALL REASONABLE AT THE TIME, WE TOOK A DIFFERENT PATH AND WE INCREASINGLY CENTRALIZE TWITTER. BUT A LOT HAS CHANGED OVER THE YEARS”. Put another way: they chose to be a business. No business chooses to create a federated system, at least no successful business (to date). There's simply no reason to. The problems with spam and abuse of the phone networks, email, texting, etc are largely a result of predictably bad actors in an "open" federated system. The people who call for open standards either aren't a business or they're losing to the industry leader and they want "open standards" to not die. [1]: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/11/twitter-did-jack-dorsey-quit-or-was-he-fired https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/11/twitter-did-jack-dor...

vkou 5y ago
> TWITTER WAS SO OPEN THAT MANY SAW THE POTENTIAL TO BECOME A DECENTRALIZED INTERNET STANDARD, SUCH AS THE SMTP (EMAIL SENDING) PROTOCOL. FOR A WHOLE HOST OF REASONS, ALL REASONABLE AT THE TIME, Given that there was exactly one proprietary twitter 'network', I would not say that none of those reasons were 'reasonable' at the time. They were just wishful thinking in bed with corporate marketing. I don't think a lot of tech people quite understand what a public good looks like, but Twitter was never it. From day one, it was built as a walled garden, and any access you have to it is through the benevolence of its operators.
akira2501 5y ago
> Twitter's developer API followed a typical pattern: do anything you can to get traction for your platform. This includes being "open" to encourage developers to build stuff on your platform. Then, when you don't need them anymore, ditch them. From my recollections.. Twitter was a company that had a user base, but no plans or strategy to become actually profitable off that base. They, like many companies at the time, seemed to assume that if you just build the big "next generation open platform" that money would just start falling from the sky... somehow. Ultimately, the red line meets the black line, and you have to turn to VCs who push you into the most obvious solution: Shut down all the "open platform" dead weight and start pushing advertising. I don't think these are intentional moves but rather the natural consequence of certain types of silicon valley business "plans."
- samfisher83 5y ago
  Isn't that that MO of most big tech companies that don't sell things. Get as many eye balls and sell ads.
fleddr 5y ago
You're right that somebody who made billions from a problematic system comes across as hypocritical when he turns around to burn it. That said, there's something pure and genuine in him. Real regret, it doesn't come across as an act. And let's face it, Twitter has never really grown up. It's not really a functioning business.
- Traster 5y ago
  Let's be clear about what has happened here though - Dorsey saved Twitter when he first returned, but he completely failed to run it as a business. No monetization, anemic growth and a complete failure to become a real competitor in the sector. Every other comparable tech company grew massively over the last 6 years and Twitter is basically the same value it was when he came back as CEO. And also let's remember why he is stepping down - this only came after investors came in and said "Hey, you've done a bad job, we need someone new"- and not for nothing, the 6 years of lack of value matched 6 years of failure to innovate. His criticism might be genuine, but at the same time, he was in charge. It's difficult to beleive him when suddenly the week after he lost responsibilty, he gained a vision for how to fix twitter.
  - jseliger 5y ago
    anemic growth Twitter may primarily be a text-based medium and for that reason it appeals to people who are more textually and informationally oriented. This idea isn't original to me: https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2018/5/21/invisible-asymptotes https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2018/5/21/invisible-asymptote..., https://alexdanco.com/2019/10/17/the-audio-revolution/ https://alexdanco.com/2019/10/17/the-audio-revolution/. Maybe there's much more growth in it: or maybe that's the nature of the company and product.
    - novok 5y ago
      Facebook did not just stay in it's little FB lane. In response to not performing well, they figured out mobile, they accquired IG, Occulus, WhatsApp and Messenger and made them key business items to expand their relevance to great effect and make gabs of money as a result. What has twitter done to go beyond their core product? Not much other than a recent clubhouse clone and a failed snapchat story clone.

by cletus 5y ago

vkou 5y ago

> TWITTER WAS SO OPEN THAT MANY SAW THE POTENTIAL TO BECOME A DECENTRALIZED INTERNET STANDARD, SUCH AS THE SMTP (EMAIL SENDING) PROTOCOL. FOR A WHOLE HOST OF REASONS, ALL REASONABLE AT THE TIME, Given that there was exactly one proprietary twitter 'network', I would not say that none of those reasons were 'reasonable' at the time. They were just wishful thinking in bed with corporate marketing. I don't think a lot of tech people quite understand what a public good looks like, but Twitter was never it. From day one, it was built as a walled garden, and any access you have to it is through the benevolence of its operators.

akira2501 5y ago

> Twitter's developer API followed a typical pattern: do anything you can to get traction for your platform. This includes being "open" to encourage developers to build stuff on your platform. Then, when you don't need them anymore, ditch them. From my recollections.. Twitter was a company that had a user base, but no plans or strategy to become actually profitable off that base. They, like many companies at the time, seemed to assume that if you just build the big "next generation open platform" that money would just start falling from the sky... somehow. Ultimately, the red line meets the black line, and you have to turn to VCs who push you into the most obvious solution: Shut down all the "open platform" dead weight and start pushing advertising. I don't think these are intentional moves but rather the natural consequence of certain types of silicon valley business "plans."

samfisher83 5y ago
Isn't that that MO of most big tech companies that don't sell things. Get as many eye balls and sell ads.

fleddr 5y ago

You're right that somebody who made billions from a problematic system comes across as hypocritical when he turns around to burn it. That said, there's something pure and genuine in him. Real regret, it doesn't come across as an act. And let's face it, Twitter has never really grown up. It's not really a functioning business.

Traster 5y ago
Let's be clear about what has happened here though - Dorsey saved Twitter when he first returned, but he completely failed to run it as a business. No monetization, anemic growth and a complete failure to become a real competitor in the sector. Every other comparable tech company grew massively over the last 6 years and Twitter is basically the same value it was when he came back as CEO. And also let's remember why he is stepping down - this only came after investors came in and said "Hey, you've done a bad job, we need someone new"- and not for nothing, the 6 years of lack of value matched 6 years of failure to innovate. His criticism might be genuine, but at the same time, he was in charge. It's difficult to beleive him when suddenly the week after he lost responsibilty, he gained a vision for how to fix twitter.
- jseliger 5y ago
  anemic growth Twitter may primarily be a text-based medium and for that reason it appeals to people who are more textually and informationally oriented. This idea isn't original to me: https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2018/5/21/invisible-asymptotes https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2018/5/21/invisible-asymptote..., https://alexdanco.com/2019/10/17/the-audio-revolution/ https://alexdanco.com/2019/10/17/the-audio-revolution/. Maybe there's much more growth in it: or maybe that's the nature of the company and product.
  - novok 5y ago
    Facebook did not just stay in it's little FB lane. In response to not performing well, they figured out mobile, they accquired IG, Occulus, WhatsApp and Messenger and made them key business items to expand their relevance to great effect and make gabs of money as a result. What has twitter done to go beyond their core product? Not much other than a recent clubhouse clone and a failed snapchat story clone.