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> But, what is gone? Twitter was a unique spot where journalists, celebrities, titans of industries, your family, friends and co-workers, would join a daily mos

by mjr00 4y ago

> But, what is gone? Twitter was a unique spot where journalists, celebrities, titans of industries, your family, friends and co-workers, would join a daily mosh pit filled with a mix of truly important cultural moments and the most inane things you’ve ever seen. [...] Twitter will likely go from Elon’s new toy that is too difficult for him to play with, to being passed on to his legal and finance advisers to sort out. Regardless of your opinion on Elon, it's simply too early to conclude that this is "likely" to happen, or that all those people will stop using it. For those old enough to remember, major social media platform changes have happened and users have sworn that it was (effectively) the end. Sometimes they are right: see new Digg causing a mass Reddit migration, or banning adult content on Tumblr, turning a dying platform into a dead one. Sometimes they are incredibly wrong: see new Reddit[0], or, amusingly, people who claimed that Facebook switching to an algorithmic news feed instead of chronological was the end of the platform. I can't remember how long ago that was, but I imagine Facebook has increased in userbase and value 3 or 4 orders of magnitudes since that change. [0] Yes, I'm aware old reddit is still accessible, but the vast majority of the userbase is on the mobile website or app.

plazmatic 4y ago
vineyardmike 4y ago
It’s too early to claim it’s dead but he’s right that it’s a coin toss to see if the service can stay running (without downtime). With 50% layoffs (and the rumors of how lax their security was) it’s only a matter of time before the on-call needed to save some issue won’t exist. A breach or bug or something is inevitable. Remember when meta -a far bigger and richer company- messed up basic networking and took the company down for a day? Regardless of how you feel about free speech, not everyone likes it. Even the perception that twitter is getting toxic will drive people away… except the toxic people. The only thing holding twitter up is that there’s no alternative for the people that matter - the “blue checks” who drive most of their traffic and engagement. Yet Elon managed to piss them off anyways.
- arein3 4y ago
  You need a few people to maintain the servers, not a few thousand people.
  - johannes1234321 4y ago
    Yes, but if you happen to fire "the wrong" people it can take a while till the remaining one understand that component well enough for a hot fix, which for the original team had been easy and if ops are wieder to the specific dev team one can assume there are a few components with little attention now in the mix.
    - arein3 4y ago
      So then you have to keep 6k engineers on payroll?)
      - johannes1234321 4y ago
        Depending on what you want to do. But it's unlikely you can fire 50% after a weekend in, even if you are willing to let quite a lot of projects die.
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    Even if you don't think you need that much operations labor at scale (and I'm assuming you are drastically under-estimating Twitter's current scale), when you do a 50% layoff before you even know your exact bus factor and are assuming a 100x/1000x redundancy (somehow), what are the odds you lay off one of those "few" people that are critical to operations? How do you know you haven't thrown out the needles in that big of a haystack?
    - sillysaurusx 4y ago
      Software engineers: we’re engineers Also software engineers: be sure not to fire Ned or else the whole bridge might collapse
TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
Unfortunately not too early to tell. Blue tick and all. https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1588604338330800128 https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1588604338330800128
matwood 4y ago
> Regardless of your opinion on Elon, it's simply too early to conclude that this is "likely" to happen, or that all those people will stop using it. Agree. Twitter was a going nowhere dumpster fire before the purchase. It's going to be a bumpy ride, but it could end up better or disappear. Either would be fine with me. Everyone on this site (and even many non-tech people) had their own ideas on how to fix Twitter. It was a given that it was a mess. Musk had the money and hubris (I don't think he wanted to really buy it), to actually say hold my beer. Regardless of what you think of Musk, he loves Twitter and now has a lot of financial incentive to make it function better as a business. So we'll see.
- browningstreet 4y ago
  When people subscribe to a service, they want a sense of the tangible and intangible aspects of the service and the company behind it... they want to know what they're paying for, and what they're getting for that money. So far, Elon's been a dynamic and inconsistent figure. He's not representing a stable, known offering where things won't radically change with his whims. IMO, he needs to stop tweeting and he needs to build a team who can represent the policies and offerings of the company. Obviously he has that in place at Tesla and SpaceX (in greater degrees than he has brought to Twitter so far). Even if the $8/mo offering is a bargain, it also has to feel reasonable. So far, Elon's not making that case for himself, even while he's basically making the case that he is Twitter now.
- gonehome 4y ago
  At the very least it's nice to see a power user in control of the platform. The status quo was so bad - I'm really curious what's going to happen. I'm optimistic.
- ryandvm 4y ago
  > now has a lot of financial incentive to make it function better as a business Boy that's an understatement. It was already kind of a neutral value shithole, but now he's got to figure out how to wring a profit out of this $45 billion dollar dried up cow. And he's got to do it without his usual trick of nursing from the US government teat. Good luck, Elon. You're gonna need it.
fooey 4y ago
The NAACP is officially calling for an advertiser boycott of Twitter > It is immoral, dangerous, and highly destructive to our democracy for any advertiser to fund a platform that fuels hate speech, election denialism and conspiracy theories. Until actions are taken to make this a safe space, we call on companies to pause all advertising on Twitter. https://twitter.com/DerrickNAACP/status/1588600470259789824 https://twitter.com/DerrickNAACP/status/1588600470259789824
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
seydor 4y ago
I don't even consider Twitter a social medium. Most people don't tweet, they treat it as an RSS feed with emojis. Only the rich and the famous use it to "socialize publicly". There are no real friendships or social networks, just subscription lists. It's more of a modern-era mass medium, with an agenda and all, and a feedback button. I dont think twitter changes caused much of uproar in the past, like when they extended the character limit painlessly (unlike facebook). The audience is there mostly for the narrative, not the format.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  I don't think you use it the way I use it. For me, it's just a place to talk to people I personally know. It very much is socializing in public.
Swenrekcah 4y ago
Regarding the Facebook algorithmic feed. It kind of was the end of that platform and the beginning of a new one. One likely much more profitable and also much more destructive to liberal democracy. (Liberal as in the real, proper sense, not the newer slightly illiberal liberals)
phpisthebest 4y ago
>>but the vast majority of the userbase is on the mobile website or app. proving that the world truly is insane, I use old reddit on mobile as well as new reddit is more or less unusable on a mobile browser they hard force you in to their terrible app. If I need a mobile app I use a 3rd party app as the offical app is TERRIBLE When/if they kill old.reddit is the say I stop using reddit, I would say my usage is already down 80% since the launch of reddit, as I pretty much only use the technical subreddits for news now, staying away for all other area;s of reddit.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
grammers 4y ago
> Regardless of your opinion on Elon, it's simply too early to conclude that this is "likely" to happen, or that all those people will stop using it. Exactly, these people use it for their own exposure/benefit. If it harms them if they stop, they will not stop.
btbuildem 4y ago
I think the prediction of "it will go down" is more related to the fact that Twitter (like any company with a web-facing product and a large userbase) is basically a sieve of a boat with a team constantly bailing out the water, frantically plugging holes as new ones appear -- and the new management is firing most of the team. From that perspective, yes it's likely to simultaneously catch fire and sink.
rufus_foreman 4y ago
>> Twitter was a unique spot where journalists, celebrities, titans of industries, your family, friends and co-workers, would join a daily mosh pit I served in the mosh pit. I knew the mosh pit. The mosh pit was a friend of mine. Twitter, you're no mosh pit.

by mjr00 4y ago

plazmatic 4y ago

vineyardmike 4y ago

It’s too early to claim it’s dead but he’s right that it’s a coin toss to see if the service can stay running (without downtime). With 50% layoffs (and the rumors of how lax their security was) it’s only a matter of time before the on-call needed to save some issue won’t exist. A breach or bug or something is inevitable. Remember when meta -a far bigger and richer company- messed up basic networking and took the company down for a day? Regardless of how you feel about free speech, not everyone likes it. Even the perception that twitter is getting toxic will drive people away… except the toxic people. The only thing holding twitter up is that there’s no alternative for the people that matter - the “blue checks” who drive most of their traffic and engagement. Yet Elon managed to piss them off anyways.

arein3 4y ago
You need a few people to maintain the servers, not a few thousand people.
- johannes1234321 4y ago
  Yes, but if you happen to fire "the wrong" people it can take a while till the remaining one understand that component well enough for a hot fix, which for the original team had been easy and if ops are wieder to the specific dev team one can assume there are a few components with little attention now in the mix.
  - arein3 4y ago
    So then you have to keep 6k engineers on payroll?)
    - johannes1234321 4y ago
      Depending on what you want to do. But it's unlikely you can fire 50% after a weekend in, even if you are willing to let quite a lot of projects die.
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  Even if you don't think you need that much operations labor at scale (and I'm assuming you are drastically under-estimating Twitter's current scale), when you do a 50% layoff before you even know your exact bus factor and are assuming a 100x/1000x redundancy (somehow), what are the odds you lay off one of those "few" people that are critical to operations? How do you know you haven't thrown out the needles in that big of a haystack?
  - sillysaurusx 4y ago
    Software engineers: we’re engineers Also software engineers: be sure not to fire Ned or else the whole bridge might collapse

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago

Unfortunately not too early to tell. Blue tick and all. https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1588604338330800128 https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1588604338330800128

matwood 4y ago

> Regardless of your opinion on Elon, it's simply too early to conclude that this is "likely" to happen, or that all those people will stop using it. Agree. Twitter was a going nowhere dumpster fire before the purchase. It's going to be a bumpy ride, but it could end up better or disappear. Either would be fine with me. Everyone on this site (and even many non-tech people) had their own ideas on how to fix Twitter. It was a given that it was a mess. Musk had the money and hubris (I don't think he wanted to really buy it), to actually say hold my beer. Regardless of what you think of Musk, he loves Twitter and now has a lot of financial incentive to make it function better as a business. So we'll see.

browningstreet 4y ago
When people subscribe to a service, they want a sense of the tangible and intangible aspects of the service and the company behind it... they want to know what they're paying for, and what they're getting for that money. So far, Elon's been a dynamic and inconsistent figure. He's not representing a stable, known offering where things won't radically change with his whims. IMO, he needs to stop tweeting and he needs to build a team who can represent the policies and offerings of the company. Obviously he has that in place at Tesla and SpaceX (in greater degrees than he has brought to Twitter so far). Even if the $8/mo offering is a bargain, it also has to feel reasonable. So far, Elon's not making that case for himself, even while he's basically making the case that he is Twitter now.
gonehome 4y ago
At the very least it's nice to see a power user in control of the platform. The status quo was so bad - I'm really curious what's going to happen. I'm optimistic.
ryandvm 4y ago
> now has a lot of financial incentive to make it function better as a business Boy that's an understatement. It was already kind of a neutral value shithole, but now he's got to figure out how to wring a profit out of this $45 billion dollar dried up cow. And he's got to do it without his usual trick of nursing from the US government teat. Good luck, Elon. You're gonna need it.

fooey 4y ago

The NAACP is officially calling for an advertiser boycott of Twitter > It is immoral, dangerous, and highly destructive to our democracy for any advertiser to fund a platform that fuels hate speech, election denialism and conspiracy theories. Until actions are taken to make this a safe space, we call on companies to pause all advertising on Twitter. https://twitter.com/DerrickNAACP/status/1588600470259789824 https://twitter.com/DerrickNAACP/status/1588600470259789824

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

seydor 4y ago

I don't even consider Twitter a social medium. Most people don't tweet, they treat it as an RSS feed with emojis. Only the rich and the famous use it to "socialize publicly". There are no real friendships or social networks, just subscription lists. It's more of a modern-era mass medium, with an agenda and all, and a feedback button. I dont think twitter changes caused much of uproar in the past, like when they extended the character limit painlessly (unlike facebook). The audience is there mostly for the narrative, not the format.

jeffbee 4y ago
I don't think you use it the way I use it. For me, it's just a place to talk to people I personally know. It very much is socializing in public.

Swenrekcah 4y ago

Regarding the Facebook algorithmic feed. It kind of was the end of that platform and the beginning of a new one. One likely much more profitable and also much more destructive to liberal democracy. (Liberal as in the real, proper sense, not the newer slightly illiberal liberals)

phpisthebest 4y ago

>>but the vast majority of the userbase is on the mobile website or app. proving that the world truly is insane, I use old reddit on mobile as well as new reddit is more or less unusable on a mobile browser they hard force you in to their terrible app. If I need a mobile app I use a 3rd party app as the offical app is TERRIBLE When/if they kill old.reddit is the say I stop using reddit, I would say my usage is already down 80% since the launch of reddit, as I pretty much only use the technical subreddits for news now, staying away for all other area;s of reddit.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

grammers 4y ago

> Regardless of your opinion on Elon, it's simply too early to conclude that this is "likely" to happen, or that all those people will stop using it. Exactly, these people use it for their own exposure/benefit. If it harms them if they stop, they will not stop.

btbuildem 4y ago

I think the prediction of "it will go down" is more related to the fact that Twitter (like any company with a web-facing product and a large userbase) is basically a sieve of a boat with a team constantly bailing out the water, frantically plugging holes as new ones appear -- and the new management is firing most of the team. From that perspective, yes it's likely to simultaneously catch fire and sink.

rufus_foreman 4y ago

>> Twitter was a unique spot where journalists, celebrities, titans of industries, your family, friends and co-workers, would join a daily mosh pit I served in the mosh pit. I knew the mosh pit. The mosh pit was a friend of mine. Twitter, you're no mosh pit.