3 ms·
It's all about economics of demand for what Twitter is offering: advertising. Elon's changes have massively harmed the value of an ad on Twitter. Moderation te
by mabbo 4y ago
It's all about economics of demand for what Twitter is offering: advertising. Elon's changes have massively harmed the value of an ad on Twitter.
Moderation teams are massively cut, meaning advertisers have to worry about their products beside hate speech or worse. At the same time, Elon is explicitly un-banning people who were banned for hate speech, promising that no ads will show beside their future hate speech- it will just show to their many many followers who come to the site to see that exact thing. I'm not certain advertisers will be encouraged by this.
Engineering is massively reduced, meaning the operational excellence of the system is in question- what good is paying for ads if the site is down so often that users don't come back?
And there's all of the potential issues with the SEC and other legal problems that aren't being addressed because Elon fired the teams that handled those things. No sane advertising agency is signing a long-term contract with Twitter. There's just too much uncertainty.
Elon Musk is not cut out to be the CEO of a software company. The problem is that he is the only person that isn't aware of that at this point.
- pschuegr 4y agoIt seems a little unfair that people who hang out in hateful places get a better UX (ie no ads). If anything, they should generate ads for anti-hate groups and therapy providers and plaster the feed with them.
- Macha 4y agoYou can feel potentially relieved that mostly they get trashier ads, rather than no ads. Supplements and gambling and anime blow up dolls used to be the order of the day on 4chan at least.
- FollowingTheDao 4y agoExactly. This is the same thing youtube did by taking away the downvote count. This is all about advertising.
- inglor_cz 4y ago"It's all about economics of demand for what Twitter is offering: advertising. Elon's changes have massively harmed the value of an ad on Twitter." This is actually something that would be in line with Musk's previous communications. Twitter needs to become less dependent on advertising, much less so, so that its value as a public forum isn't held hostage by a few shy giants that would love to see cute kittens and meaningless platitudes next to their ads. The idea that free services supported by extensive ads is the only way to go has been too long taken for revealed wisdom. The downsides are only now becoming apparent. That said, the method chosen by Musk seems to be very chaotic and destructive, and it is totally unclear to me if Twitter can actually build a different business model without going belly-up first.