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If he wanted to make all these sweeping changes then why did he alienate his staff? Can you imagine all the time and money that was put into staffing Twitter?

If he wanted to make all these sweeping changes then why did he alienate his staff? Can you imagine all the time and money that was put into staffing Twitter? There is value to an organization and its unwritten human network upon which it operates. Then it was just blown away over night to appease some beanie wearing mouth breathers on the platform

sshine 3y ago
Firing all those people is undoubtedly risky; Twitter’s unpaid office rent is an example of a consequence of that. But the assessment was that there were way too many people to solve the task of running Twitter. And Twitter is still running.
- astrange 3y ago
  It sure wasn't running last week when it didn't load half the time I tried it. (Some of that time it was trying to serve me intranet pages.)
  - zpeti 3y ago
    There might be some outages, but still, Twitter as an entity is operating just fine, if Elon's claims are correct time spent on twitter is at record highs, and similarweb doesn't show any real decrease in visitors: https://www.similarweb.com/website/twitter.com/#traffic https://www.similarweb.com/website/twitter.com/#traffic Reddit, Twitter, Facebook all had outages in the beginning all the time, it's not a deal breaker for heavily network effect products. So really, yes, getting rid of some staff has caused outages, but it's also sped up development of new features, and not really affected usage.
    - wun0ne 3y ago
      What new features? Rate-limiting? $8 blue check amplification? Advertiser haemorrhage?
      - sshine 3y ago
        Less shadow-banning based on personal views?
        lesuorac 3y ago
        You would call "less shadowing banning" a _new Feature_? Like if I make a wrench and one year I make 50% less of them I wouldn't say I developed a new feature. If I created a slightly different wrench I might call it a new feature but just doing more or less of something I already have isn't _new_. So to circle back, what new features has twitter developed?
        astrange 3y ago
        That's called working the refs. You just complain something's happening nonstop whether or not it actually is, and eventually the admins give you treats to shut you up. (Popular right-wing account "catturd2" constantly complains about this even though Elon put him on the special list that shows him in everyone's for you feed, along with dril and the menswear guy.) In this case it is still happening because that's mostly bugs, and they definitely aren't fixing the bugs. Also, because some of the signal comes from how many people have blocked you, and personally repellent right-wingers get frequently blocked!
      - zpeti 3y ago
        Edit button, separating for you and following, blue checks, 140+ character tweets, unlimited video, algorithm adjustments, live video streaming on the way. At least be intellectually honest. Please. I know you hate Elon, but at least consider the actual facts. (This is more change than twitter did for 15 years before Elon)
        gingerrr 3y ago
        > separating for you and following Are you counting the fact that those are now different UI tabs as a new "feature"? Twitter always had the ability to switch between chronological feed of just accounts you followed, and an algo-curated feed of those tweets + other tweets you may have interest in, sorted by interest rank - that's exactly what "for you" is now. > blue checks Really not sure what you're claiming here. Verification was already a thing, as was Twitter Blue (editing & long form tweets for paid accounts) - the only "feature" elmo introduced is ambiguity about what that check represents - is it someone who has spent the last 15 years on twitter as a notable public presence with a verifiable identity? or some rando with $8 on a prepaid credit card? Who knows, now. > unlimited video to count this as a feature the video player has to actually work reliably. it does not, by any metric. endless buffer, glitching, skipping with no way to reload lost chunks. the 10s videos were an annoying limitation but they just worked. > This is more change than twitter did for 15 years before Elon Circles. Spaces. Communities. Community Notes. Co-tweets. Alt text tagging as a first-class citizen of image posting. User tipping options. NFT profile pics. These are all features released in the last 5 years of twitter before elmo took over. If we're talking about intellectual honesty let's apply it evenly.
spidersenses 3y ago
[flagged]
- astrange 3y ago
  Unquestionable economic success. It was extremely profitable because it caused someone to buy the company for $44 billion.
ulfw 3y ago
Nobody is asking for a "Wechat" in the west. It's not something I've ever seen anyone craving for. And no need to spend 44,000,000,000$ on twitter if all you want is to destroy the brand and replace it with a letter brand that's ungoogleable. But hey... what do I know.
- zpeti 3y ago
  > Nobody is asking for a "Wechat" in the west. It's not something I've ever seen anyone craving for. I mean, I agree this is Elon's dream. But so is SpaceX and Tesla which he did quite well on. Also - you're quote reminds of the oft cited henry ford quote: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
  - ulfw 3y ago
    True true and yet... People do want faster horses. The model T had 20hp. Try to get a Ford nowadays with less than 10x that ;)
- lesuorac 3y ago
  Isn't it what people crave? Google didn't start adding the ability to do flights in the search engine because nobody was using that. People love one stop shopping.
  - TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
    The only reason I'd ever use anything like that would be to send money to a person (not a business) in a non-SEPA country. And for that, I'd use PayPal. What's the business case for this X? How does it improve anything?
    - ulfw 3y ago
      There's plenty of ways to do that today already including ubiquitous SWIFT transfers almost any bank supports. Plus several startups and tech companies who offer similar services. One doesn't need twitter for that (nor crypto currencies, which was yesterday's 'money transfer to foreign lands' big promise)

sshine 3y ago

Firing all those people is undoubtedly risky; Twitter’s unpaid office rent is an example of a consequence of that. But the assessment was that there were way too many people to solve the task of running Twitter. And Twitter is still running.

astrange 3y ago
It sure wasn't running last week when it didn't load half the time I tried it. (Some of that time it was trying to serve me intranet pages.)
- zpeti 3y ago
  There might be some outages, but still, Twitter as an entity is operating just fine, if Elon's claims are correct time spent on twitter is at record highs, and similarweb doesn't show any real decrease in visitors: https://www.similarweb.com/website/twitter.com/#traffic https://www.similarweb.com/website/twitter.com/#traffic Reddit, Twitter, Facebook all had outages in the beginning all the time, it's not a deal breaker for heavily network effect products. So really, yes, getting rid of some staff has caused outages, but it's also sped up development of new features, and not really affected usage.
  - wun0ne 3y ago
    What new features? Rate-limiting? $8 blue check amplification? Advertiser haemorrhage?
    - sshine 3y ago
      Less shadow-banning based on personal views?
      - lesuorac 3y ago
        You would call "less shadowing banning" a _new Feature_? Like if I make a wrench and one year I make 50% less of them I wouldn't say I developed a new feature. If I created a slightly different wrench I might call it a new feature but just doing more or less of something I already have isn't _new_. So to circle back, what new features has twitter developed?
      - astrange 3y ago
        That's called working the refs. You just complain something's happening nonstop whether or not it actually is, and eventually the admins give you treats to shut you up. (Popular right-wing account "catturd2" constantly complains about this even though Elon put him on the special list that shows him in everyone's for you feed, along with dril and the menswear guy.) In this case it is still happening because that's mostly bugs, and they definitely aren't fixing the bugs. Also, because some of the signal comes from how many people have blocked you, and personally repellent right-wingers get frequently blocked!
    - zpeti 3y ago
      Edit button, separating for you and following, blue checks, 140+ character tweets, unlimited video, algorithm adjustments, live video streaming on the way. At least be intellectually honest. Please. I know you hate Elon, but at least consider the actual facts. (This is more change than twitter did for 15 years before Elon)
      - gingerrr 3y ago
        > separating for you and following Are you counting the fact that those are now different UI tabs as a new "feature"? Twitter always had the ability to switch between chronological feed of just accounts you followed, and an algo-curated feed of those tweets + other tweets you may have interest in, sorted by interest rank - that's exactly what "for you" is now. > blue checks Really not sure what you're claiming here. Verification was already a thing, as was Twitter Blue (editing & long form tweets for paid accounts) - the only "feature" elmo introduced is ambiguity about what that check represents - is it someone who has spent the last 15 years on twitter as a notable public presence with a verifiable identity? or some rando with $8 on a prepaid credit card? Who knows, now. > unlimited video to count this as a feature the video player has to actually work reliably. it does not, by any metric. endless buffer, glitching, skipping with no way to reload lost chunks. the 10s videos were an annoying limitation but they just worked. > This is more change than twitter did for 15 years before Elon Circles. Spaces. Communities. Community Notes. Co-tweets. Alt text tagging as a first-class citizen of image posting. User tipping options. NFT profile pics. These are all features released in the last 5 years of twitter before elmo took over. If we're talking about intellectual honesty let's apply it evenly.

spidersenses 3y ago

[flagged]

astrange 3y ago
Unquestionable economic success. It was extremely profitable because it caused someone to buy the company for $44 billion.

ulfw 3y ago

Nobody is asking for a "Wechat" in the west. It's not something I've ever seen anyone craving for. And no need to spend 44,000,000,000$ on twitter if all you want is to destroy the brand and replace it with a letter brand that's ungoogleable. But hey... what do I know.

zpeti 3y ago
> Nobody is asking for a "Wechat" in the west. It's not something I've ever seen anyone craving for. I mean, I agree this is Elon's dream. But so is SpaceX and Tesla which he did quite well on. Also - you're quote reminds of the oft cited henry ford quote: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
- ulfw 3y ago
  True true and yet... People do want faster horses. The model T had 20hp. Try to get a Ford nowadays with less than 10x that ;)
lesuorac 3y ago
Isn't it what people crave? Google didn't start adding the ability to do flights in the search engine because nobody was using that. People love one stop shopping.
- TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
  The only reason I'd ever use anything like that would be to send money to a person (not a business) in a non-SEPA country. And for that, I'd use PayPal. What's the business case for this X? How does it improve anything?
  - ulfw 3y ago
    There's plenty of ways to do that today already including ubiquitous SWIFT transfers almost any bank supports. Plus several startups and tech companies who offer similar services. One doesn't need twitter for that (nor crypto currencies, which was yesterday's 'money transfer to foreign lands' big promise)