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Musk doesn't own Twitter, advertisers do, and they will, until Twitter somehow finds alternative revenue sources. All the nonsense people post about "democratic
by concinds 4y ago
Musk doesn't own Twitter, advertisers do, and they will, until Twitter somehow finds alternative revenue sources. All the nonsense people post about "democratic oversight of Twitter", or "independent" policy enforcement boards, completely obfuscates this.
Most people are not being lucid enough: platforms didn't ban Trump because of some rigorous decision-making; they did so because they knew advertisers would destroy any platform that kept him on. Same with any other high-profile bans. Musk can't unban these people without advertisers crushing Twitter.
Keep in mind that bigger corporations spend a larger percentage of their revenues on marketing than SMBs. With Pareto's law, this means the largest corps in the world represent a huge fraction of ad spend. Twitter, news media, and all major online platforms are completely owned by the largest corporations on Earth.
- ericpauley 4y agoIn another more real sense, though, he owns Twitter.
- Kye 4y agoDigg had the same misunderstanding. He owns some computers and a bit of IP. He doesn't own what makes it worth something. If people or advertisers leave, he has to turn the computers off since he can't afford to run them.
- smabie 4y agoIt's not like, a misunderstanding. Elon Musk literally owns Twitter.
- Kye 4y agoYes, I agreed with that. The computers and intellectual property (Twitter) he owns are worthless if he makes it so no one wants to be there. This is why I referred to Digg: the people in charge tanked their near $200m valuation thinking they didn't need to care about the users, and finally had to sell off the brand and domain for $500k. Elon owns Twitter, the property. He does not own Twitter, the community. No community, no advertisers. No advertisers, no property unless he can do better than Google's pitiful results at finding an alternative to advertising.