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> I can’t see myself putting the same work in to help the world’s richest man pay the loans he took out So Twitter was “really good” (while it was helping the

• imperialdrive 4y ago
  • spion 4y ago
    Thats precisely right - the software itself isn't really that impressive [*], the connections and people is what (can) make it great (or terrible, depending on who you follow). [*] - as a product - there is some really great engineering due to the scale of course.
  • jdub 4y ago
    So you're saying you don't really know what you're talking about?
    • oefrha 4y ago
      That’s a significant part of social media: shitting on things you don’t know shit about.
• MrDresden 4y ago
  There is a very strong signal being given right now about the trend Twitter will be on for a long time.
  • szundi 4y ago
    Musk talking for days is not a signal yet
    • MrDresden 4y ago
      You are badly informed if you believe talk is all he has done.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• polishdude20 4y ago
  It's easier to rally against some foe when that foe is one person. When it's a bunch of shareholders, the hatred is diluted.
  • stefs 4y ago
    that's exactly elons problem now. every unpopular action will be pinned on him personally. https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428132/elon-musk-twitter-acquisition-problems-speech-moderation https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428132/elon-musk-twitt...
    • dmix 4y ago
      Facebook's ire seems to always be focused on Zuckerberg. It was always that way, especially after the Social Network movie. And despite about a decade of similar whining on HN about deleting Facebook they are still the most popular social network around.
      • tchaffee 4y ago
        What's your source for popularity and does it do a breakdown by demographics advertisers are most interested in? Because I think that tells a very different story from "still most popular with boomers". Their earnings and stock price also tell a different story from "still most popular".
        • dmix 4y ago
          Just go through the list of most popular Twitter users and ask yourself where else are they going to go? I personally wouldn't gamble the farm on corporation ad spending's adherence to social justice if those eyeballs are all in one place... at least long term. At least FB has to compete with messaging apps and Instagram/TikTok. Twitter doesn't have a good #2. It's probably a mistake to take the emotional outrage news cycles over the next month (or 3) as much more than the exact thing people will keep going back to Twitter for... ironically this outrage at Musk is the exactly what drives people to use Twitter.
• jdub 4y ago
  Twitter was already under a cloud while Musk was grandstanding his acquisition stunt. Once he was forced to go through with it, his immediate actions and communication confirmed how much chaos we (users, staff, customers) were in for. Then after one week, awfully mishandled mass layoffs, demands to massively reduce infrastructure costs, etc. Nothing's changed? Sure it has. Trust and confidence are hard to build, easy to torch. One week.
  • pastacacioepepe 4y ago
    Chaos? I haven't been subject to any on Twitter lately. Actually it seems it finally stopped forcing me to signup? That alone is a great improvement.
    • sshine 4y ago
      It still does, but a lot longer down the page.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • madaxe_again 4y ago
    “How much chaos” The only “chaos” I’m aware of is the /b/ N**r spam invasion that occurred one afternoon? The rest seems to just be Musk doing Musk and manufactured outrage (as I really do not understand how $8/mo is breaking the bank for popular celebrities and brands) over charging for validation. Anyway, down with Habbo Hotel.
    • mackatap 4y ago
      I still think people are just mad because verified won't be a status symbol anymore. Vanity, nothing more. No matter how Musk handled this, he would've gotten hate because he is just a controversial dude, and he does like to stir the pot.
      • jdub 4y ago
• bitwize 4y ago
  Twitter used to be run by progressives, so there was a modicum of "we are, or should be, doing good things here". Elon Musk bought Twitter specifically to hollow out its progressive cultural core.
  • luckylion 4y ago
    "I was happy to do free work for that billionaire, he's part of the same ideology I've been born into. But now that it's this other billionaire, I cannot continue."
    • DanHulton 4y ago
      That is absolutely not what they said, and you are being disingenuous by pretending that it is.
      • sshine 4y ago
        The point being made that Twitter was owned by rich people before Elon bought it.
        • oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
          Sure, but people aren't primarily complaining that musk is rich. That's a convenient 'bonus gripe' but the main issues are his political leanings and his apparent disregard for the company's workers.
        • tchaffee 4y ago
          Twitter was also owned by average people. As are the vast majority of publicly traded companies.
          • PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
            This is false, unless you mean "pension funds". Most people do not own individual stocks. And in fact, most people do not own stocks at all. The set of stock-owning people is far from average.
• dan-robertson 4y ago
  What do you think the shareholders of a typical public company look like? I think you’ll find a small percentage owned by rich private individuals/family offices, some owned by private investors like insurance companies, and the rest held by pension funds or mutual funds which look like big shares on paper but don’t really exercise control and correspond to lots of tiny holdings by people who range from poor to ordinary to a small number of quite wealthy people. That is, I think the usual answer to “who are the shareholders of this public company?” is “ordinary people through their pensions or investment accounts, skewing a little bit older and richer”. Some companies have a relatively large stake owned by some private person or fund, and others have a big share owned by their original founders or their families, but in that case those people would be named instead of just saying ‘shareholders’.
• lyschoening 4y ago
  It's one thing to use a medium that is being abused by malicious actors; it's another to be on a medium that suffers constant drama fostered by an owner and CEO who spends his days vocalizing an imprecise understanding of civil rights and his contempt for his customers.
• gonzo41 4y ago
  I think it;s kind of screaming into the void to call people out on their inconsistent emotional decisions when that's all musk seems to do these days. Better to stand back and accept this is just humanity and enjoy the show.
• kramerger 4y ago
  He also gave you a specific non-political reason (accessibility) in the sentences right above what you quoted.
  • briantakita 4y ago
    After watching some interviews with some Twitter employees, I suspect that many in the accessibility team were very political & their politics influenced their decisions.
    • mcherm 4y ago
      That sounds like it might be something I hadn't heard about. Can you provide some sources I can learn from?
      • briantakita 4y ago
        Project Veritas is one...sure there was a hidden camera but some of the employees were quite candid with their beliefs. I don't mean to paint a broad stroke, but from the interviews, it seems like the culture of the company leaned a certain political direction.
        • tsimionescu 4y ago
          Project Veritas has a long history of deceptive editing and outright manufactured reporting, so I wouldn't trust any report you see out of them.
          • dezeiner 4y ago
            This is a tired and often parroted talking point used to dismiss literal hours of continuous footage of execs rambling on and on about enacting their political agendas in the workplace.
            • briantakita4 4y ago
• mcv 4y ago
  I've never been a fan of Twitter or any of the closed, private social networks, and Musk's takeover doesn't change anything about that, but I absolutely welcome the fact that many people are finally inspired to look at some alternatives. They didn't do it before, but they're doing it now, and are pleasantly surprised by what they find. Even if Musk hasn't ruined Twitter yet, there's nothing wrong with him being the catalyst for this improvement.
• hristov 4y ago
  The main difference isn't really who but how much money. One uses a lot of goods and services in ordinary life. Generally speaking one hopes that the provider of these goods and services uses their resources efficiently to provide them for a reasonable price including reasonable profit. When a leveraged buyout happens (this is true for most leveraged buyouts) a large cost is put into the business that wasn't there before. And this cost does nothing to help make the good or service better. It merely exists so that person B may own the business instead of person A. So what is the difference between Musk and the previous shareholders? The main difference is that Musk put an enormous cost on the business which will be borne by twitters users and advertisers, and that cost brings twitter nothing more than having musk as an owner. By himself musk may be no better or worse than the previous shareholders. But just for him to rule over twitter is going to cost twitter a lot of money that will probably reduce the quality of the service. This is true of most leveraged buyouts and whenever a leveraged buyout happens to a company you use, it is always a good idea to look for alternatives. The official response of the leveraged buyout industry is that the new management is just so much better that it is worth to saddle the company with all this debt and all these costs to just change the management. And the customer will benefit from the better management. It is yet to be seen whether Musk is such a great manager that he can run a social media company so much better than everybody else to make it worth taking the enormous debt, and do that without having any experience running a social media company and while running two (oh wait - three ) other companies simultaneously. But generally speaking this is not the case. It might have been the case during the beginning of the LBO industry when there was some truly entrenched bad management in some US companies but not anymore. It is possible to change management of a publicly traded company without doing an LBO, and nowadays stockholders tend to be good about holding their managers to high standards.
  • Aeolun 4y ago
    I’m afraid I don’t understand how Twitter can end up with debt from Musk buying it. How does that even work? Twitter the company takes out a huge loan to pay the current shareholders a fortune (which is decided by those same shareholders, no conflict of interest there at all). But who the fuck would give them a loan like that (like you say, just to have Musk at the helm)?
• tchaffee 4y ago
  Accessibility is supposed to change and improve. It's fair to expect that to halt when the entire staff has been fired.
  • twohaibei 4y ago
    In my opinion it's the opposite. The smaller the ship, the sharper the turn.
    • briantakita 4y ago
      Especially when the accessibility team acted as political speech commissars.
      • tchaffee 4y ago
        Source?
        • briantakita 4y ago
          Project Veritas had some videos about Twitter employees declaring their politics & their willingness to censor political opponents. I don't think anyone on the accessibility team was interviewed but Twitter as a whole did have a political leaning. Banning people for political speech is an accessibility issue & for some reason it was allowed to continue.
          • tchaffee 4y ago
            > I don't think anyone on the accessibility team was interviewed So you don't have a source to back up your claim. > Banning people for political speech is an accessibility issue It is not. [1]. You don't get to widen the definition of things to make them so broad as to include your claim. Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility
• tchaffee 4y ago
  Twitter also used to be owned by average people. Like most publicly traded companies. So no, it's not from "many rich shareholders" to Elon. It's more nuanced than you're making it out to be.
  • briantakita 4y ago
    > Twitter also used to be owned by average people Then all public companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, & Northrop Grumman are owned with the money of "average people"...largely managed by fund advisors.
    • tchaffee 4y ago
      Of course. What's your point?
      • briantakita3 4y ago
• aizen89 4y ago
  All those whiners that go to other platforms will be back. History shows that emotions take over, but then the person calms down and returns to the usual services, platforms, etc. How many whiners and alarmists were there when Microsoft acquired Github :) so what? everyone is back and happy.