4 ms·

I still don’t understand what Elon is trying to do. If you had asked me before he bought it what twitter’s core problems were I would have said “poorly moderate

by Joeri 3y ago

I still don’t understand what Elon is trying to do. If you had asked me before he bought it what twitter’s core problems were I would have said “poorly moderated toxicity”, “lack of conversational depth”, “high friction onboarding”, and “excessive operating cost”. Apparently Elon only agrees about the cost part, because on all those other dimensions twitter is now worse? In all his other businesses Elon started by offering a grand vision of where they were going: “electric cars for everyone”, “humans on mars”, “tunnels everywhere”, “direct mind machine interface”. It was often ridiculed, but the goal made sense. What is the vision for twitter? I still don’t know. Nothing he says makes any sense.

zirgs 3y ago
Also - "dumb automated moderation that matches keywords and ignores context" and "non-existent appeal process".
spiderfarmer 3y ago
He now (not at first) wants to turn it into and 'everything app', like Wechat. Impossible, I know.
- nightfly 3y ago
  Might have been possible before he sabotaged it
jahnu 3y ago
An absolute mess is what it is. The most consistent he’s been has been his claim he wants to make the “everything app” “X”. But that’s all it has been so far. A claim. He seems to think he can do it backwards. Charge for it first and later add the value that people would want.
- zmk_ 3y ago
  People do pay for Tesla Autopilot though.
olliej 3y ago
"electric cars for everyone" was the vision of the founders of Tesla, prior to Musk functionally stealing the company from them. "humans on mars" is just repeating standard sci-fi tropes that have been around for 50+ years, while not actually solving any problem. "tunnels everywhere" makes sense for public transit, and literally any other case it's just extremely expensive roads - making it a vacuum just makes it expensive and also impractical. "direct mind machine interface" I dunno, it's just another sci-fi trope since basically the moment electrical computers, it has actual value for many injuries, _maybe_ it has value beyond that, but again he's not coming up with anything novel or new. Musk isn't some amazing genius, or revelatory thinker. His "let's populate mars" to solve "over population" surely indicates the opposite.
- jahnu 3y ago
  I will say he’s a genius at one thing; raising funds. How on earth he convinced people to invest in this I’ll never know.
  - olliej 3y ago
    He convinced the Saudi government - who have been aggressively endeavoring to control content of Twitter, Facebook, and media in general for years - to get a controlling interest in Twitter. I assume they would have given money to literally anyone who could provide a plausible path to that.
- rakoo 3y ago
  > "tunnels everywhere" makes sense for public transit, and literally any other case it's just extremely expensive roads - making it a vacuum just makes it expensive and also impractical. "tunnels everywhere" was, by his own admission, a ploy to destroy the public will to build public transit because it would have been a problem for selling cars. He never wanted to actually build tunnels, he just wanted to lure people into not supporting public transit.
  - Nextgrid 3y ago
    > by his own admission Do you have a source? Not that I don't believe it, but I'd like to see for myself where he was stupid/brazen enough to outright admit this.
3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
Elon is trying to lose less money. It's very simple. Unfortunately due to his big mouth and impulsive, terrible management decisions, he's losing more money every time he moves.
BackBlast 3y ago
> It was often ridiculed, but the goal made sense. What is the vision for twitter? I still don’t know. Nothing he says makes any sense. You're missing the core. He wants Twitter to be a functional and inclusive town square for public, and world wide, discussion. There is the bot and manipulation problem. Which is deeper and more extensive than anyone seems to really believe. Frankly, I'm not sure how anyone solves this without pretty stiff vetting during on boarding. Any community that provides free signups is going to have bot problems. Period. Facebook is losing this war. So is Google. I think he should punt the prevention of AI data scraping as not worth the cost. But it's value he is leaving on the table if he doesn't, though I think this one is detrimental to the users. Put it in the EULA or content licensing or where ever and be satisfied. Don't throw it in front of your legit users.
- Timon3 3y ago
  > You're missing the core. He wants Twitter to be a functional and inclusive town square for public, and world wide, discussion. Well, aside from people he doesn't like, and content he doesn't like. Let's face it: he wants Twitter to be a town square with topics he likes and with people who support him.
  - jsbisviewtiful 3y ago
    > Well, aside from people he doesn't like, and content he doesn't like. Let's face it: he wants Twitter to be a town square with topics he likes and with people who support him. Thank you for the realistic correction.
    - Timon3 3y ago
      You're welcome! The gaslighting attempts by his fans are getting more and more ridiculous. Musk's censoring and flipflopping are by now well-documented enough that nobody can honestly deny his MO.
- Joeri 3y ago
  It is hard to take those town square remarks seriously when his actions have pushed so many people off of the platform. Twitter was always a harsh place for moderate voices, and the lack of moderation has made it even less hospitable. Killing off third party apps only made that worse, because it took away tools people were using to filter out unwanted hate speech. Ultimately I can only judge Elon’s twitter by the outcome, and that means looking at my feed. It’s a ghost town now, mostly only the angry shouters are left.
renegade-otter 3y ago
I don't think even Elon knows what he wants to do. He bought Twitter out of spite - as he was active there and did not like all the things that were said about him on the platform. This was not a "we are going to Mars" moment - it was more of a "I am a petulant child, why does no one like me when I am acting horribly" moment. Needless to say, there will be fewer takers for a one-way ticket to Mars with this sort of management.

by Joeri 3y ago

zirgs 3y ago

Also - "dumb automated moderation that matches keywords and ignores context" and "non-existent appeal process".

spiderfarmer 3y ago

He now (not at first) wants to turn it into and 'everything app', like Wechat. Impossible, I know.

nightfly 3y ago
Might have been possible before he sabotaged it

jahnu 3y ago

An absolute mess is what it is. The most consistent he’s been has been his claim he wants to make the “everything app” “X”. But that’s all it has been so far. A claim. He seems to think he can do it backwards. Charge for it first and later add the value that people would want.

zmk_ 3y ago
People do pay for Tesla Autopilot though.

olliej 3y ago

"electric cars for everyone" was the vision of the founders of Tesla, prior to Musk functionally stealing the company from them. "humans on mars" is just repeating standard sci-fi tropes that have been around for 50+ years, while not actually solving any problem. "tunnels everywhere" makes sense for public transit, and literally any other case it's just extremely expensive roads - making it a vacuum just makes it expensive and also impractical. "direct mind machine interface" I dunno, it's just another sci-fi trope since basically the moment electrical computers, it has actual value for many injuries, _maybe_ it has value beyond that, but again he's not coming up with anything novel or new. Musk isn't some amazing genius, or revelatory thinker. His "let's populate mars" to solve "over population" surely indicates the opposite.

jahnu 3y ago
I will say he’s a genius at one thing; raising funds. How on earth he convinced people to invest in this I’ll never know.
- olliej 3y ago
  He convinced the Saudi government - who have been aggressively endeavoring to control content of Twitter, Facebook, and media in general for years - to get a controlling interest in Twitter. I assume they would have given money to literally anyone who could provide a plausible path to that.
rakoo 3y ago
> "tunnels everywhere" makes sense for public transit, and literally any other case it's just extremely expensive roads - making it a vacuum just makes it expensive and also impractical. "tunnels everywhere" was, by his own admission, a ploy to destroy the public will to build public transit because it would have been a problem for selling cars. He never wanted to actually build tunnels, he just wanted to lure people into not supporting public transit.
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  > by his own admission Do you have a source? Not that I don't believe it, but I'd like to see for myself where he was stupid/brazen enough to outright admit this.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago

Elon is trying to lose less money. It's very simple. Unfortunately due to his big mouth and impulsive, terrible management decisions, he's losing more money every time he moves.

BackBlast 3y ago

> It was often ridiculed, but the goal made sense. What is the vision for twitter? I still don’t know. Nothing he says makes any sense. You're missing the core. He wants Twitter to be a functional and inclusive town square for public, and world wide, discussion. There is the bot and manipulation problem. Which is deeper and more extensive than anyone seems to really believe. Frankly, I'm not sure how anyone solves this without pretty stiff vetting during on boarding. Any community that provides free signups is going to have bot problems. Period. Facebook is losing this war. So is Google. I think he should punt the prevention of AI data scraping as not worth the cost. But it's value he is leaving on the table if he doesn't, though I think this one is detrimental to the users. Put it in the EULA or content licensing or where ever and be satisfied. Don't throw it in front of your legit users.

Timon3 3y ago
> You're missing the core. He wants Twitter to be a functional and inclusive town square for public, and world wide, discussion. Well, aside from people he doesn't like, and content he doesn't like. Let's face it: he wants Twitter to be a town square with topics he likes and with people who support him.
- jsbisviewtiful 3y ago
  > Well, aside from people he doesn't like, and content he doesn't like. Let's face it: he wants Twitter to be a town square with topics he likes and with people who support him. Thank you for the realistic correction.
  - Timon3 3y ago
    You're welcome! The gaslighting attempts by his fans are getting more and more ridiculous. Musk's censoring and flipflopping are by now well-documented enough that nobody can honestly deny his MO.
Joeri 3y ago
It is hard to take those town square remarks seriously when his actions have pushed so many people off of the platform. Twitter was always a harsh place for moderate voices, and the lack of moderation has made it even less hospitable. Killing off third party apps only made that worse, because it took away tools people were using to filter out unwanted hate speech. Ultimately I can only judge Elon’s twitter by the outcome, and that means looking at my feed. It’s a ghost town now, mostly only the angry shouters are left.

renegade-otter 3y ago

I don't think even Elon knows what he wants to do. He bought Twitter out of spite - as he was active there and did not like all the things that were said about him on the platform. This was not a "we are going to Mars" moment - it was more of a "I am a petulant child, why does no one like me when I am acting horribly" moment. Needless to say, there will be fewer takers for a one-way ticket to Mars with this sort of management.