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I’m not surprised the comments here are universally skeptical so far, but I’ll chime in that I think it’s plausible. The largest expense by far was compensation

I’m not surprised the comments here are universally skeptical so far, but I’ll chime in that I think it’s plausible. The largest expense by far was compensation and with 10% the previous workforce it dropped dramatically. The question is how much revenue would have fallen. In the HN bubble X is basically over and everyone has moved to Mastodon, but there has been little change in the folks I follow. Are journalists and ordinary folk leaving en masse as well?

deleted 3y ago
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autonomousErwin 3y ago
Have most HN people gone over to Mastadon? Personally I think Twitter/X has improved and become more interesting though the monetisation schema feels like it's pushing it towards it being a bit more LinkedIn'y (people are chasing impressions more than they used to because an actual carrot exists).
nonethewiser 3y ago
Is it literally 10% or is that figurative?
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/12/tech/elon-musk-bbc-interview-twitter-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/12/tech/elon-musk-bbc-interview-... > Musk was quoted as saying in the interview that the social media platform now has only 1,500 employees, down from under 8,000 who were employed at the time of his acquisition. The reduction equates to roughly 80% of the company’s staff. That was in April. Another 10% since then seems entirely plausible.
- GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
  A recent recruiting email I got from X said their team is 50 people. Maybe that's just engineering, but it's tiny. I noticed they're also hiring random remote devs with barely any experience too.
DoughnutHole 3y ago
From the sounds of things Musk’s antics have cost Twitter a lot of ad revenue from businesses not wanting to associate themselves with him. In my own experience I’ve been seeing a lot more dodgy ads (scams, crypto, far-right groups) that were probably rejected by the old management. Maybe that’s making up some of the lost revenue, but it’s exactly the sort of stuff that made traditional businesses anxious about content moderation on platforms like YouTube. It does seem that the userbase hasn’t gone away - the migration to other platforms hasn’t panned out and the power users are still there. But if the platform is long-term toxic to advertisers then they’re going to need some better ideas than Twitter Blue.
rchaud 3y ago
It's not about Mastodon taking users, it's about major advertisers deciding it's not worth it to continue. Have you noticed that the CEO, an ad account executive never mentions any advertisers by name or ad-related revenue growth?
timeon 3y ago
> Are journalists and ordinary folk leaving en masse as well? I have no Twitter account and for couple of months Twitter links are not working for me. Before, I have not noticed the presence of Twitter because it was just another link I have visited. But now when it is just error page I have noticed how omnipresent Twitter is on sites like Reddit, HN and in the news.
jillesvangurp 3y ago
In the end, journalists are dependent on social media to get eyeballs on their content. Twitter / X still is a highly effective tool for that. There won't be a lot of people that can afford to opt out of that. Elon Musk probably rubbed a lot of people the wrong way with his antics but I don't think he was fundamentally that wrong with his core analysis of the issues facing Twitter when he bought it: - High staffing cost relative and some revenue challenges. - Content moderation that was simultaneously controversial, expensive, and biased. And also not that effective. - The Twitter API was getting abused a lot by people with all sorts of agendas. Including some state actors like Russia. - R&D stagnation. The site barely changed in the years before he bought it. So, he took a wrecking ball to the whole thing and upset a lot of people doing so. But, if he gets it back to being profitable next year, that will be a big milestone for them. I've been using it less and less over the years. But that already started before the takeover. I kind of like Mastodon currently but part of the attraction is that it is relatively free from the noisy crowd that makes Twitter less interesting than it used to be.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

autonomousErwin 3y ago

Have most HN people gone over to Mastadon? Personally I think Twitter/X has improved and become more interesting though the monetisation schema feels like it's pushing it towards it being a bit more LinkedIn'y (people are chasing impressions more than they used to because an actual carrot exists).

nonethewiser 3y ago

Is it literally 10% or is that figurative?

ceejayoz 3y ago
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/12/tech/elon-musk-bbc-interview-twitter-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/12/tech/elon-musk-bbc-interview-... > Musk was quoted as saying in the interview that the social media platform now has only 1,500 employees, down from under 8,000 who were employed at the time of his acquisition. The reduction equates to roughly 80% of the company’s staff. That was in April. Another 10% since then seems entirely plausible.
GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
A recent recruiting email I got from X said their team is 50 people. Maybe that's just engineering, but it's tiny. I noticed they're also hiring random remote devs with barely any experience too.

DoughnutHole 3y ago

From the sounds of things Musk’s antics have cost Twitter a lot of ad revenue from businesses not wanting to associate themselves with him. In my own experience I’ve been seeing a lot more dodgy ads (scams, crypto, far-right groups) that were probably rejected by the old management. Maybe that’s making up some of the lost revenue, but it’s exactly the sort of stuff that made traditional businesses anxious about content moderation on platforms like YouTube. It does seem that the userbase hasn’t gone away - the migration to other platforms hasn’t panned out and the power users are still there. But if the platform is long-term toxic to advertisers then they’re going to need some better ideas than Twitter Blue.

rchaud 3y ago

It's not about Mastodon taking users, it's about major advertisers deciding it's not worth it to continue. Have you noticed that the CEO, an ad account executive never mentions any advertisers by name or ad-related revenue growth?

timeon 3y ago

> Are journalists and ordinary folk leaving en masse as well? I have no Twitter account and for couple of months Twitter links are not working for me. Before, I have not noticed the presence of Twitter because it was just another link I have visited. But now when it is just error page I have noticed how omnipresent Twitter is on sites like Reddit, HN and in the news.

jillesvangurp 3y ago

In the end, journalists are dependent on social media to get eyeballs on their content. Twitter / X still is a highly effective tool for that. There won't be a lot of people that can afford to opt out of that. Elon Musk probably rubbed a lot of people the wrong way with his antics but I don't think he was fundamentally that wrong with his core analysis of the issues facing Twitter when he bought it: - High staffing cost relative and some revenue challenges. - Content moderation that was simultaneously controversial, expensive, and biased. And also not that effective. - The Twitter API was getting abused a lot by people with all sorts of agendas. Including some state actors like Russia. - R&D stagnation. The site barely changed in the years before he bought it. So, he took a wrecking ball to the whole thing and upset a lot of people doing so. But, if he gets it back to being profitable next year, that will be a big milestone for them. I've been using it less and less over the years. But that already started before the takeover. I kind of like Mastodon currently but part of the attraction is that it is relatively free from the noisy crowd that makes Twitter less interesting than it used to be.