3 ms·

That's all speculation. Something as big as Twitter doesn't get thrown away, it gets repurposed. I prefer the way Musk is running it but it has it's elitist det

That's all speculation. Something as big as Twitter doesn't get thrown away, it gets repurposed. I prefer the way Musk is running it but it has it's elitist detractors. Under Jack Dorsey it was a rumor mill for independent spin doctors, character assassins, and propagandists. A fishing hole for DNC PR.

wpietri 3y ago
Yes, all discussion about the future is speculation, including your claims. Something as big as Twitter is less likely to get thrown away, sure. But it is shrinking, and could well shrink further. There's also a big question of who might buy it. The first time Tumblr got sold, it was for $1 billion. The second time, for $3 million. And the receiving organization has been putting a lot of money into it trying to create a viable business. It's perfectly possible that nobody with the money to buy and run Twitter would actually want it. Twitter was available for sale for many years, but was never purchased except by somebody doing it for decidedly non-economic reasons. Consider how Disney decided not to buy it, for example: https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/9/7/23339402/bob-iger-disney-streaming-code https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/9/7/23339402/bob-iger-disney... For many organizations, Twitter is brand poison. It'd be a continuous source of bad PR. And with some of its key assets destroyed or lost, plus so much negative press, it's going to be at best a fixer-upper. And what would they get out of it? It was never a good business even before the Threads launch when it had no serious competition for its niche. I have a hard time imagining who would pay for it even at fire sale prices.
- slowhadoken 3y ago
  If I said a traffic light will turn from red to green you'd be exaggerating if you called my statement speculation. To my knowledge the only social media sites that have been shutdown were the ones that never had any traffic. LiveJournal is still up. Disney is a massive corporation that buys other companies, why and why not is speculation. Twitter's brand under Dorsey was "brand poison", that's how it attracted so many post-progressive lunatics. A lot of those lunatics are now fleeing and/or attacking the site. CNN and FOX News have good reason to hate Musk's approach. Mainstream media has lost almost all credibility, if we could see a return to something approximating journalism that could hurt them.
  - wpietri 3y ago
    If you see yourself as to the right of not just CNN but Fox News, I hope you can understand that your perspective on what makes for a good platform is not likely to align with not just the median user, but executives who will have billions of dollars in acquisition budget. I also note that you haven't named any plausible buyers for Twitter, which suggests to me you're not very serious about this discussion.
    - slowhadoken 3y ago
      I voted for Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders. Realignment is exactly what our two party system needs. Obama was right when he told a group of children that politicians should be fighting for our vote. That's what I believe. Also I'm not your butler, find your own plausible buyers. Maybe if you stop pretending to be a mind reader you could learn to think for yourself.
      - wpietri 3y ago
        I already said I don't think there are any plausible buyers. If you are claiming they exist, please name them.
        slowhadoken 3y ago
        Grow up.
  - lmm 3y ago
    > To my knowledge the only social media sites that have been shutdown were the ones that never had any traffic. LiveJournal is still up. MySpace was the original biggest social networking site in the world, and they deleted everything in 2013. Friendster was once huge and is completely gone, even the company doesn't exist any more.
    - slowhadoken 3y ago
      MySpace is still around. Also, "huge" is a relative word. Friendster was started in 2002, at it's peak it had 115 million users. Twitter has more than twice that now and Facebook has 2.96 billion users. Social media is a different animal now.

wpietri 3y ago

Yes, all discussion about the future is speculation, including your claims. Something as big as Twitter is less likely to get thrown away, sure. But it is shrinking, and could well shrink further. There's also a big question of who might buy it. The first time Tumblr got sold, it was for $1 billion. The second time, for $3 million. And the receiving organization has been putting a lot of money into it trying to create a viable business. It's perfectly possible that nobody with the money to buy and run Twitter would actually want it. Twitter was available for sale for many years, but was never purchased except by somebody doing it for decidedly non-economic reasons. Consider how Disney decided not to buy it, for example: https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/9/7/23339402/bob-iger-disney-streaming-code https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/9/7/23339402/bob-iger-disney... For many organizations, Twitter is brand poison. It'd be a continuous source of bad PR. And with some of its key assets destroyed or lost, plus so much negative press, it's going to be at best a fixer-upper. And what would they get out of it? It was never a good business even before the Threads launch when it had no serious competition for its niche. I have a hard time imagining who would pay for it even at fire sale prices.

slowhadoken 3y ago
If I said a traffic light will turn from red to green you'd be exaggerating if you called my statement speculation. To my knowledge the only social media sites that have been shutdown were the ones that never had any traffic. LiveJournal is still up. Disney is a massive corporation that buys other companies, why and why not is speculation. Twitter's brand under Dorsey was "brand poison", that's how it attracted so many post-progressive lunatics. A lot of those lunatics are now fleeing and/or attacking the site. CNN and FOX News have good reason to hate Musk's approach. Mainstream media has lost almost all credibility, if we could see a return to something approximating journalism that could hurt them.
- wpietri 3y ago
  If you see yourself as to the right of not just CNN but Fox News, I hope you can understand that your perspective on what makes for a good platform is not likely to align with not just the median user, but executives who will have billions of dollars in acquisition budget. I also note that you haven't named any plausible buyers for Twitter, which suggests to me you're not very serious about this discussion.
  - slowhadoken 3y ago
    I voted for Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders. Realignment is exactly what our two party system needs. Obama was right when he told a group of children that politicians should be fighting for our vote. That's what I believe. Also I'm not your butler, find your own plausible buyers. Maybe if you stop pretending to be a mind reader you could learn to think for yourself.
    - wpietri 3y ago
      I already said I don't think there are any plausible buyers. If you are claiming they exist, please name them.
      - slowhadoken 3y ago
        Grow up.
- lmm 3y ago
  > To my knowledge the only social media sites that have been shutdown were the ones that never had any traffic. LiveJournal is still up. MySpace was the original biggest social networking site in the world, and they deleted everything in 2013. Friendster was once huge and is completely gone, even the company doesn't exist any more.
  - slowhadoken 3y ago
    MySpace is still around. Also, "huge" is a relative word. Friendster was started in 2002, at it's peak it had 115 million users. Twitter has more than twice that now and Facebook has 2.96 billion users. Social media is a different animal now.