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I think it's a mistake to ignore these articles for two reasons - 1 mechanical, and 1 structural. The mechanical reason - headlines are clickbait, no twitter is

I think it's a mistake to ignore these articles for two reasons - 1 mechanical, and 1 structural. The mechanical reason - headlines are clickbait, no twitter isn't literally dying today, but read the article and it is making some pretty legitimate points. The second, more structural reason is a common theme with brand equity, you can do a lot of things over time to damage a brand and non of them invididually will sink your company. But these shots to the company accumulate, and eventually it's gone too far to come back from, you can't recover. To a certain extent you saw this with digg, the redesign was the obvious exodus point, but the trust had been lost far earlier - people were ready to walk away. In the same way, Twitter doesn't look today like it's collapsing, but it's done a lot of permanent damage to itself. That broad base of quirky and interesting people you used to follow on twitter? They're not there anymore, they don't want to be on that weird homophobic guy's platform. Some of the people have stayed, but those communities largely exist on other platforms now, Twitter is no longer the centre of gravity. But those aren't the thing making twitter a billion dollar platform. The platform is still busy, but it's full of crypto bros and VC influencers, people who will take great pride in telling you how AI is going to make <person with high social status> unemployed. But that's not a healthy ecosystem - those are the guys who move in to try and farm social capital from the high status individuals, but the high status individuals aren't there anymore - a deliberate move from Elon. So yeah, it's still alive, but to some extent the value has already walked out the door. There hasn't been the big bang to crystalize this yet, but it seems highly likely that Twitter has given up its space as a cultural centre-peice. The cool kids have moved on.

user_named 4y ago
Once there's a legitimate mainstream alternative that gathers a user base and is easy to use, Twitter might significantly decrease its userbase. For example, Meta launching its Twitter alternative and acquiring Instagram users onto it.
chatmasta 4y ago
This argument would make a lot more sense if people actually gave a shit what TechCrunch or CNN had to say. In fact it's the opposite, and you see audiences actively resisting whatever agenda the "mainstream media" transparently broadcasts as its goal, to the point you get people entrenching themselves in contrarian positions they wouldn't even be able to justify if you asked them to.
- shanebellone 4y ago
  "This argument would make a lot more sense if people actually gave a shit what TechCrunch or CNN had to say" The only requirement is a sound argument. The source is an unimportant detail.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  This is a very strange conspiratorial kind of ad hominem fallacy that makes no attack on the 'sense' of the argument nor addresses it in any way...
  - chatmasta 4y ago
    No, the argument I was replying to was basically that the constant disparaging of Twitter in media outlets will be psychological "death by a thousand cuts" to their branding. I'm saying that the result will be the opposite of that, almost like a streisand effect, because in general, people do not trust the media. Over seventy percent of Americans do not trust the media - it's just a question of which outlet they trust the least. When some media outlet pushes a story, the natural inclination for anyone opposed to them is to dig their heels into a position contrary to the outlet's agenda, which is usually inferrable from the reporting and story selection. For example, the more CNN reported about COVID and Vaccines, the less likely the already vaccine hesitant were to get one. Obviously for contentious topics you need to modulate this based on how politicized the topic is and which media outlet is reporting (or not reporting) it. In this case, the people who are fans of Musk are almost exclusively the same people who oppose the outlets that have been posting negative stories about Twitter. If Fox News, NYPost, or CoinMarketCap were posting negative stories about Twitter, then GP may have a point - the stories would eventually inflict damage to the brand. But as it stands today, the only outlets crusading against Twitter are the same outlets to which most Twitter supporters are most fervently opposed, so the negative coverage will only make Twitter more endearing to them. Anyone more agreeable to those outlets probably already dislikes Twitter/Musk, so the negative branding effect will be mostly negligible.

user_named 4y ago

Once there's a legitimate mainstream alternative that gathers a user base and is easy to use, Twitter might significantly decrease its userbase. For example, Meta launching its Twitter alternative and acquiring Instagram users onto it.

chatmasta 4y ago

This argument would make a lot more sense if people actually gave a shit what TechCrunch or CNN had to say. In fact it's the opposite, and you see audiences actively resisting whatever agenda the "mainstream media" transparently broadcasts as its goal, to the point you get people entrenching themselves in contrarian positions they wouldn't even be able to justify if you asked them to.

shanebellone 4y ago
"This argument would make a lot more sense if people actually gave a shit what TechCrunch or CNN had to say" The only requirement is a sound argument. The source is an unimportant detail.
guerrilla 4y ago
This is a very strange conspiratorial kind of ad hominem fallacy that makes no attack on the 'sense' of the argument nor addresses it in any way...
- chatmasta 4y ago
  No, the argument I was replying to was basically that the constant disparaging of Twitter in media outlets will be psychological "death by a thousand cuts" to their branding. I'm saying that the result will be the opposite of that, almost like a streisand effect, because in general, people do not trust the media. Over seventy percent of Americans do not trust the media - it's just a question of which outlet they trust the least. When some media outlet pushes a story, the natural inclination for anyone opposed to them is to dig their heels into a position contrary to the outlet's agenda, which is usually inferrable from the reporting and story selection. For example, the more CNN reported about COVID and Vaccines, the less likely the already vaccine hesitant were to get one. Obviously for contentious topics you need to modulate this based on how politicized the topic is and which media outlet is reporting (or not reporting) it. In this case, the people who are fans of Musk are almost exclusively the same people who oppose the outlets that have been posting negative stories about Twitter. If Fox News, NYPost, or CoinMarketCap were posting negative stories about Twitter, then GP may have a point - the stories would eventually inflict damage to the brand. But as it stands today, the only outlets crusading against Twitter are the same outlets to which most Twitter supporters are most fervently opposed, so the negative coverage will only make Twitter more endearing to them. Anyone more agreeable to those outlets probably already dislikes Twitter/Musk, so the negative branding effect will be mostly negligible.