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It's interesting in this day and age to see a platform degrade at the speed twitter did in quality, stability, user experience, etc. I suppose what's the most s

It's interesting in this day and age to see a platform degrade at the speed twitter did in quality, stability, user experience, etc. I suppose what's the most surprising is that it seems it was intentional. I wonder how much Musk has been sandboxed at Tesla and SpaceX? Perhaps he was encouraged to do the twitter deal to get him away from the other two companies. Like a shiny object to occupy him and his time.

jacquesm 3y ago
It definitely wasn't intentional. If it had been you couldn't have done a better job of it but there is no evidence that it was intentional, and plenty that it was not.
- ChumpGPT 3y ago
  I believe there were complaints that Musk made decisions that were incredibly unpopular and reckless. Laying off important staff, creating a sweatshop environment, policy changes, etc. All these decisions were intentional, I'm sure he was warned of the possible consequences but didn't care.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Yes, but the fact that individual decision were intentional doesn't add up to that the overall goal was to wreck it.
    - walr000s 3y ago
      So you'd need some sort of legal document declaring intent to conclude that it was intentional? Twitter was the center of the Arab Spring. There's plenty of powerful people in the world who would be happy if it went away. And the users migrating to Facebook, a platform far more friendly to censorship favoring existing power structures, is probably also desirable.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        Nobody, not even Elon Musk burns that much money on a whim, besides, he tried everything he could to get out of the deal. All these weird 'genius play' defenses really are hard to follow, people make mistakes, even Elon Musk and if he had been able to walk away from it he would have.
        c420 3y ago
        Perhaps the Saudi ownership component is larger than we've been led to believe?
        throwaway290 3y ago
        Yes, Musk understood (perhaps too late) that he has Teslas to make and sell, and China is the second largest market for them, and CCP would be aware if he owns Twitter. Now he is between rock and hard place because his financial interests don't play well with his public image as "pro free speech". So maybe killing Twitter is even not too bad a deal. Plus his idea of X as "everything app" means Twitter will not exist as such anyway, ie. at best it'll be killed by quickly transforming into something else. The rumors that it will require ID verification seems to support it. Instead of a single common space it will be balkanized between nations so that he can satisfy everyone by showing different content (ie. if you verify as Chinese you will see only pro-CCP propaganda, same with Arab countries etc).
        ChumpGPT 3y ago
        He could have payed 2 billion and walked instead of losing 25 billion plus :)) Pride can be deadly....
        macintux 3y ago
        I don’t believe that’s accurate. There was a 1 billion dollar penalty clause, but that wouldn’t cover him simply changing his mind. Twitter could have sued him for breach of contract and potentially taken many billions of dollars (all fuzzy memories at this point, I could be wrong).
      - 3y ago
smoldesu 3y ago
To be fair, Twitter was headed in a downward spiral towards the end of Dorsey's reign as well. The political scene was a dumpster-fire tier mess, the remaining communities were spread out everywhere and the whole thing struggled to turn a profit. It's no wonder the previous shareholders sold out when they got the chance; Twitter's failure was writing on the wall. It's fun to dog on psudointelligent billionaires like Musk and Ellison every once in a while, but Twitter as a platform just doesn't seem to work. The funding isn't stable, the staffing is too expensive and the expectations from the community are too demanding.
- zztop44 3y ago
  Twitter wasn’t great, but it wasn’t a dumpster fire. I think the evidence is clear that the previous shareholders sold because Musk was (initially) prepared to massively overpay, not because they didn’t like the business. If they didn’t like the business they could have just sold their shares.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    It seems that many people have already forgotten the history of the aquisition. Twitter's board initially took a poison pill defense to stop Musk, but then Musk threatened a tender offer to bypass the board. Of course this was all before he tried to back out of the deal. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/technology/twitter-board-elon-musk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/technology/twitter-board-...
    - add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
      Maybe the shit show and specter of Musk's ownership dragged down the stock price such that at the beginning they didn't find his offer attractive, but later they couldn't say no?
      - shkkmo 3y ago
        Maybe when you engage is random speculation you should at least try to check your facts? The stock price was 45.08 when Musk made his offer for twitter and 51.70 when the twitter board accepted it.
lossolo 3y ago
> I suppose what's the most surprising is that it seems it was intentional. This is a surprising conclusion. There was no conspiracy to sink Twitter. Musk just failed, you know, like every mortal human being does from time to time. What's interesting is that if he had started with Twitter instead of other companies, maybe you wouldn't know his name today. Being lucky and having the right people around you have a lot more impact than people like to admit.
- sneak 3y ago
  Twitter/X is still an extant and operating business (and perhaps more sustainable given its reduced spend vs. when he took it over) so it may be premature to say he failed. As a fan of Twitter, as well as the things he was saying about online publishing at the time he took it over, I rather hope he can be successful. The loginwall reappearing and the ToSing of the elonsjet account or whatever are troubling, but I think it would be great to see Twitter make a (sustainable, profitable) comeback.
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    I think the login wall is the only big mistake; it will chase away institutions like governments, schools, etc. that used twitter as a newsfeed. The last thing he should be doing is chasing away wholesomeness.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Yes, expenses are going down but revenue is going down even faster as advertisers view Twitter as toxic. But why did you ever have any reason to believe that Elon cared about “free speech” based on his previous behavior toward critics?
    - kibwen 3y ago
      If you take the average reported Twitter salary from before the layoffs and multiply it by the estimate of number of people laid off, the annual savings is approximately equal to the annual interest repayment on the loan that Elon Musk used to pay for Twitter. Ultimately, he didn't save anything.
permo-w 3y ago
>he's intentionally sinking twitter >he's incompetent and been deliberately distracted from Tesla and SpaceX do you see how these points don't really follow from each other?
olalonde 3y ago
You are getting this impression only because of the HN/tech bubble. Twitter quality has gone up and so has usage.
- 1270018080 3y ago
  I had to delete my account because the bots and feature degradation got so bad it wasn’t worth it. Plus the pay-to-win blue checks at the top of every tweet certainly earned their… negative reputation. They hurt content quality, to put it very nicely.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - olalonde 3y ago
    [flagged]
- Terr_ 3y ago
  > Twitter quality has gone up and so has usage. What statistics did you use to reach that conclusion? Or is that just an impression gathered from some other "bubble?"
  - olalonde 3y ago
    Official Twitter stats: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1684978651857596429 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1684978651857596429
    - 1270018080 3y ago
      *Official Twitter stats *-Coming from Elon
- kibwen 3y ago
  Imagine believing that the quality and quantity of Twitter discourse has increased, and then having the gall to accuse other people of being in a bubble.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

jacquesm 3y ago

It definitely wasn't intentional. If it had been you couldn't have done a better job of it but there is no evidence that it was intentional, and plenty that it was not.

ChumpGPT 3y ago
I believe there were complaints that Musk made decisions that were incredibly unpopular and reckless. Laying off important staff, creating a sweatshop environment, policy changes, etc. All these decisions were intentional, I'm sure he was warned of the possible consequences but didn't care.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Yes, but the fact that individual decision were intentional doesn't add up to that the overall goal was to wreck it.
  - walr000s 3y ago
    So you'd need some sort of legal document declaring intent to conclude that it was intentional? Twitter was the center of the Arab Spring. There's plenty of powerful people in the world who would be happy if it went away. And the users migrating to Facebook, a platform far more friendly to censorship favoring existing power structures, is probably also desirable.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Nobody, not even Elon Musk burns that much money on a whim, besides, he tried everything he could to get out of the deal. All these weird 'genius play' defenses really are hard to follow, people make mistakes, even Elon Musk and if he had been able to walk away from it he would have.
      - c420 3y ago
        Perhaps the Saudi ownership component is larger than we've been led to believe?
      - throwaway290 3y ago
        Yes, Musk understood (perhaps too late) that he has Teslas to make and sell, and China is the second largest market for them, and CCP would be aware if he owns Twitter. Now he is between rock and hard place because his financial interests don't play well with his public image as "pro free speech". So maybe killing Twitter is even not too bad a deal. Plus his idea of X as "everything app" means Twitter will not exist as such anyway, ie. at best it'll be killed by quickly transforming into something else. The rumors that it will require ID verification seems to support it. Instead of a single common space it will be balkanized between nations so that he can satisfy everyone by showing different content (ie. if you verify as Chinese you will see only pro-CCP propaganda, same with Arab countries etc).
      - ChumpGPT 3y ago
        He could have payed 2 billion and walked instead of losing 25 billion plus :)) Pride can be deadly....
        macintux 3y ago
        I don’t believe that’s accurate. There was a 1 billion dollar penalty clause, but that wouldn’t cover him simply changing his mind. Twitter could have sued him for breach of contract and potentially taken many billions of dollars (all fuzzy memories at this point, I could be wrong).
    - 3y ago

smoldesu 3y ago

To be fair, Twitter was headed in a downward spiral towards the end of Dorsey's reign as well. The political scene was a dumpster-fire tier mess, the remaining communities were spread out everywhere and the whole thing struggled to turn a profit. It's no wonder the previous shareholders sold out when they got the chance; Twitter's failure was writing on the wall. It's fun to dog on psudointelligent billionaires like Musk and Ellison every once in a while, but Twitter as a platform just doesn't seem to work. The funding isn't stable, the staffing is too expensive and the expectations from the community are too demanding.

zztop44 3y ago
Twitter wasn’t great, but it wasn’t a dumpster fire. I think the evidence is clear that the previous shareholders sold because Musk was (initially) prepared to massively overpay, not because they didn’t like the business. If they didn’t like the business they could have just sold their shares.
- lapcat 3y ago
  It seems that many people have already forgotten the history of the aquisition. Twitter's board initially took a poison pill defense to stop Musk, but then Musk threatened a tender offer to bypass the board. Of course this was all before he tried to back out of the deal. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/technology/twitter-board-elon-musk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/technology/twitter-board-...
  - add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
    Maybe the shit show and specter of Musk's ownership dragged down the stock price such that at the beginning they didn't find his offer attractive, but later they couldn't say no?
    - shkkmo 3y ago
      Maybe when you engage is random speculation you should at least try to check your facts? The stock price was 45.08 when Musk made his offer for twitter and 51.70 when the twitter board accepted it.

lossolo 3y ago

> I suppose what's the most surprising is that it seems it was intentional. This is a surprising conclusion. There was no conspiracy to sink Twitter. Musk just failed, you know, like every mortal human being does from time to time. What's interesting is that if he had started with Twitter instead of other companies, maybe you wouldn't know his name today. Being lucky and having the right people around you have a lot more impact than people like to admit.

sneak 3y ago
Twitter/X is still an extant and operating business (and perhaps more sustainable given its reduced spend vs. when he took it over) so it may be premature to say he failed. As a fan of Twitter, as well as the things he was saying about online publishing at the time he took it over, I rather hope he can be successful. The loginwall reappearing and the ToSing of the elonsjet account or whatever are troubling, but I think it would be great to see Twitter make a (sustainable, profitable) comeback.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  I think the login wall is the only big mistake; it will chase away institutions like governments, schools, etc. that used twitter as a newsfeed. The last thing he should be doing is chasing away wholesomeness.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Yes, expenses are going down but revenue is going down even faster as advertisers view Twitter as toxic. But why did you ever have any reason to believe that Elon cared about “free speech” based on his previous behavior toward critics?
  - kibwen 3y ago
    If you take the average reported Twitter salary from before the layoffs and multiply it by the estimate of number of people laid off, the annual savings is approximately equal to the annual interest repayment on the loan that Elon Musk used to pay for Twitter. Ultimately, he didn't save anything.

permo-w 3y ago

>he's intentionally sinking twitter >he's incompetent and been deliberately distracted from Tesla and SpaceX do you see how these points don't really follow from each other?

olalonde 3y ago

You are getting this impression only because of the HN/tech bubble. Twitter quality has gone up and so has usage.

1270018080 3y ago
I had to delete my account because the bots and feature degradation got so bad it wasn’t worth it. Plus the pay-to-win blue checks at the top of every tweet certainly earned their… negative reputation. They hurt content quality, to put it very nicely.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- olalonde 3y ago
  [flagged]
Terr_ 3y ago
> Twitter quality has gone up and so has usage. What statistics did you use to reach that conclusion? Or is that just an impression gathered from some other "bubble?"
- olalonde 3y ago
  Official Twitter stats: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1684978651857596429 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1684978651857596429
  - 1270018080 3y ago
    *Official Twitter stats *-Coming from Elon
kibwen 3y ago
Imagine believing that the quality and quantity of Twitter discourse has increased, and then having the gall to accuse other people of being in a bubble.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]