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If North Korea offered $60 billion to buy Twitter would Twitter be forced to sell? Not comparing Musk to NK, but money isn't the only consideration when an offe
by ryoshu 5y ago
If North Korea offered $60 billion to buy Twitter would Twitter be forced to sell? Not comparing Musk to NK, but money isn't the only consideration when an offer to sell comes in.
- loceng 5y agoIndeed, what happens when Elon starts his own platform instead and uses some of the ~$40 billion he'd otherwise buy Twitter with instead on paying top users of Twitter to exclusively use his platform instead?
- metadat 5y agoI'd ditch twtr in a heartbeat, at this point it's a cesspool in every sense.
- dev_tty01 5y agoThere are already alternatives to Twitter. Why haven't you ditched it already?
- metadat 5y agoI'm aware, and do you realize nobody of note is using the alternatives? Why would you recommend someone invest time building a presence in yet another loser platform with bleak future prospects? Doesn't seem helpful or all that bright. For a real alternative to succeed, solid backers focused on dethroning tw are needed to inspire confidence and stability, then we all need to jump at about the same time to get the momentum going and bounce out of the twatterverse. As it stands now, there is no real competition.
- tsimionescu 5y ago> I'm aware, and do you realize nobody of note is using the alternatives? That's exactly the point - there is no reason to believe this would change if Musk created his own social network.
- metadat 5y agoI'd be willing to give it a shot if it's backed by $$$ and a progressive technologist.
- skinnymuch 5y agoYour two comments show you’re the perfect audience and user for an Elon social platform. Every failed or failing Twitter esque platform has some number of perfect audience fits. The problem is that those aren’t enough users. There is no reason to believe an Elon venture would fare markedly better.
- ipaddr 5y agoThe amount of users who once used twitter minus still use twitter is greater than current twitter users. You could build off of everyone rejecting twitter.
- skinnymuch 5y agoMost people who have “rejected” Twitter did not do so because of Twitter issues but wanting micro blogging sort of social platform. Most rejected the overall concept. The amt of users that stil want something similar but not Twitter AND who will be appeased by whatever alt Twitter is made is an even smaller number.
- tsimionescu 5y agoThat only makes sense if everyone who stopped using Twitter is some kind of united cohort. Many people were simply not interested in the format, didn't find content that cared about, didn't have friends using it, drifted off to other social networks etc. Good luck gathering all of these people together on a new platform.
- tshaddox 5y agoWhat would happen is that it would almost certainly fail to make any impact.
- root_axis 5y ago> what happens when Elon starts his own platform He wouldn't bother because it'd be a failure. Twitter's tech stack isn't worth 40 billion, Musk could clone twitter for less than $500m, but just having a platform doesn't accomplish much, the overwhelming majority of twitter users have no reason to leave twitter.
- aleister_777 5y agoI bet there would be a whole lot of people that would join elon-twitter.
- root_axis 5y agoThey said the same thing about truth social.
- Msw242 5y agoParler didn't fail because it was unable to attract a userbase.
- root_axis 5y agoThat is why it failed - technical mistakes aside.
- skinnymuch 5y agoParler failed because it was never actually able to do and be what the incoming user base thought they were promised —- a free, uncensored bastion. Since that would never work at a bigger size with mainstream attention, there’s no real diff. Parler being a grift makes it all muddied any how.
- michaelmrose 5y agoDo you remember Google Plus? Google had excellent financing and an existing team of excellent software developers and couldn't pull of a credible alternative to facebook. The world is littered with the expensive corpses of failed software.
- ipaddr 5y agoMuch of Facebook could be cloned by many startups see VK. Google's product lacked purpose. It died because of a lack of vision and leadership and product mistakes (real names). It died prematurely. Google treated the product like a pilot a network threw on the first week of September. It had solid numbers and given time it could have found itself if it found a backer in leadership.
- nickysielicki 5y agoNo, but only because you chose North Korea.
- dijit 5y agoNorth Korea is under heavy sanctions and is thus a poor choice. But if France put a bid on twitter, they would be forced to entertain the offer.
- ryoshu 5y agoIf the China Investment Corporation offered $60 billion to take Twitter private would Twitter be forced to entertain the offer?
- thaumasiotes 5y agoChina is not under sanctions, but the odds are excellent that the US government would flip out and prohibit Twitter from selling.
- mdoms 5y agoNorth Korea is under economic sanctions by USA. Your hypothetical is stupid for a whole bunch of reasons.
- aleister_777 5y agoThey certainly had no problem with selling to Saudi Arabia.