3 ms·

This has to be the most moronic part of Elon's plan. Firing everyone to improve operating margins, I understand that. Iterating on features rapidly, even if t

This has to be the most moronic part of Elon's plan. Firing everyone to improve operating margins, I understand that. Iterating on features rapidly, even if they're not quite ready for prime time? That makes a lot of sense if you're trying to beat out the competition. Rebranding your website and conference rooms? This sounds like a stupid waste of time and effort. If you wanted to create X the next twitter, just do a start up. Everyone would have signed up just because Elon Musk was using it. You didn't need to buy twitter for that. Just stupid.

echelon 3y ago
> You didn't need to buy twitter for that. You do need to buy Twitter to avoid running afoul of the SEC. You do need to buy (something) to dump lots of Tesla stock without cratering it.
- kadoban 3y ago
  > You do need to buy Twitter to avoid running afoul of the SEC. Huh?
  - HWR_14 3y ago
    At some point in the process, there is a worry that Musks public statements about buying Twitter when he owned like 10% and then not making a real effort to do so may have been investigated as a pump and dump (especially if he followed through in his threat to sell his stock if he wasn't allowed to buy it). Now, I would say that was maybe a month of a long process when that was true.
    - kadoban 3y ago
      Oh I see. Yeah, unless the fines for that were going to be several billion, sounds like an insane reason to buy Twitter.
      - beeftime 3y ago
        Musk's apparent thinking was that it would have been easier to wriggle his way out of the Twitter purchase than the fines (around 1bn, if I recall correctly) turned out not to be the case!
partiallypro 3y ago
He could have easily created a second app and done exactly what Meta did with Threads and had instant signups with a Twitter account, connecting the two. His plan is comically awful. Unfortunately, I loved Twitter, and felt it was the most valuable social network in terms of instant content, but it is now being ruined.
- yodsanklai 3y ago
  > but it is now being ruined. I'm not a Twitter user, how has the user experience changed since Elon's taking over?
  - kevingadd 3y ago
    The new prioritization algorithm tends to shift the lowest quality posts to the top in comments and the algorithmic feed. They also broke old (good) Tweetdeck, and have announced that new (bad) Tweetdeck will cost money. The quality of ads on the service has also declined tremendously. They've begun restricting other functionality as well like rate-limiting tweet viewing and direct messages.
  - censor_me 3y ago
    [dead]
  - oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
    The sibling explains well, although it's missing key detail. If you pay Musk $8/month, your replies to tweets will appear above those who do not. Just imagine how that might work here at HN, and multiply it by the "way worse actors" factor to get an idea of the result. Since 'verification' is now just a paid service, it's also much harder to separate bad actors from good actors. There are other minor changes that have degraded the service, but it's difficult to tell if they're permanent or just another live experiment.
    - dmux 3y ago
      >Since 'verification' is now just a paid service, it's also much harder to separate bad actors from good actors. Doesn't the fact that a payment method has been setup _help_ and not _hinder_ the process of separating bad actors from good? I'm not a huge Twitter user by any means but I would think that verification step would cut down on automated spam.

echelon 3y ago

> You didn't need to buy twitter for that. You do need to buy Twitter to avoid running afoul of the SEC. You do need to buy (something) to dump lots of Tesla stock without cratering it.

kadoban 3y ago
> You do need to buy Twitter to avoid running afoul of the SEC. Huh?
- HWR_14 3y ago
  At some point in the process, there is a worry that Musks public statements about buying Twitter when he owned like 10% and then not making a real effort to do so may have been investigated as a pump and dump (especially if he followed through in his threat to sell his stock if he wasn't allowed to buy it). Now, I would say that was maybe a month of a long process when that was true.
  - kadoban 3y ago
    Oh I see. Yeah, unless the fines for that were going to be several billion, sounds like an insane reason to buy Twitter.
    - beeftime 3y ago
      Musk's apparent thinking was that it would have been easier to wriggle his way out of the Twitter purchase than the fines (around 1bn, if I recall correctly) turned out not to be the case!

partiallypro 3y ago

He could have easily created a second app and done exactly what Meta did with Threads and had instant signups with a Twitter account, connecting the two. His plan is comically awful. Unfortunately, I loved Twitter, and felt it was the most valuable social network in terms of instant content, but it is now being ruined.

yodsanklai 3y ago
> but it is now being ruined. I'm not a Twitter user, how has the user experience changed since Elon's taking over?
- kevingadd 3y ago
  The new prioritization algorithm tends to shift the lowest quality posts to the top in comments and the algorithmic feed. They also broke old (good) Tweetdeck, and have announced that new (bad) Tweetdeck will cost money. The quality of ads on the service has also declined tremendously. They've begun restricting other functionality as well like rate-limiting tweet viewing and direct messages.
- censor_me 3y ago
  [dead]
- oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
  The sibling explains well, although it's missing key detail. If you pay Musk $8/month, your replies to tweets will appear above those who do not. Just imagine how that might work here at HN, and multiply it by the "way worse actors" factor to get an idea of the result. Since 'verification' is now just a paid service, it's also much harder to separate bad actors from good actors. There are other minor changes that have degraded the service, but it's difficult to tell if they're permanent or just another live experiment.
  - dmux 3y ago
    >Since 'verification' is now just a paid service, it's also much harder to separate bad actors from good actors. Doesn't the fact that a payment method has been setup _help_ and not _hinder_ the process of separating bad actors from good? I'm not a huge Twitter user by any means but I would think that verification step would cut down on automated spam.