6 ms·

One year post-acquisition, X traffic and MAUs in decline, report claims

46 points by webwanderer 3y ago

paulpauper 3y ago
Doesn't seem too bad. The great 'Musk exodus' to many were predicting never happened.
- glenndebacker 3y ago
  In Europe we don't have any alternative to go too for now. The day that I have a bluesky code or threads is available I will drop it in a heartbeat.
- throwaway5959 3y ago
  To support the debt service they have now, the numbers need to go up not down or sideways.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- kalupa 3y ago
  Speak for yourself! Everyone I know personally have left and re-founded the sources they followed there elsewhere. Anecdotal? Sure it is! All we're going to get from X is anecdote or lies about usage anyway, so why not lean into it, huh?
- jrflowers 3y ago
  This is a good point. The decline in traffic and active users is proof that nobody has stopped using this website. By a similar metric you can see, based off of its Alexa rank, MySpace is still the most popular social media site by far.
- rvz 3y ago
  It was complete hysteria a year ago from a highly emotionally charged audience. I think we have given the doomsday folks plenty of time for their predictions around the complete collapse of Twitter / X to manifest and it turns out that it did not happen and the platform is still alive. Obviously the so-called 'exodus' never happened and their top predictions have failed to come true [0]. But it just shows that even most HNers at the time fell for the media exaggerations because it was the click-bait trend. Happened with the so-called collapse of Meta and once again with Twitter / X. The deaths of both Meta and Twitter / X, have been greatly exaggerated. It is time to admit that such predictions like this [1] and this [2] aged extremely poorly 1 year on. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37295543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37295543 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36580669 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36580669 [2] https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-how-a-twitter-engineer-says-it-will-break-in-the-coming-weeks/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-ho...
  - agentofoblivion 3y ago
    Downvotes by those that were in on the hysteria and don’t like to have to face that about themselves.
    - foderking 3y ago
      you are absolutely correct. Yall can downvote me too
- genmud 3y ago
  Well, anecdotally it feels like infosec and osint twitter are rotten husks of their former glory. There used to be vibrant discussions and commentary, but I guess it depends on what you do/follow on Twitter. MAU might be flat, but I can almost guarantee the bot or inauthentic traffic is what are keeping those numbers flat. Heck, a non zero amount of that inauthentic traffic has paid for twitter for purposes of spam or propaganda. Protip: you can generally tell a sites actual user base by the quality of ads and their ad revenue. They are running non brand safe ads and reports are their ad revenue is a fraction of pre-musk levels. I half expect them to start running straight up taboola ads at some point.
HillRat 3y ago
I think we're pretty much out of interesting things to say about post-acquisition Twitter (Twixtter?); it seems to have settled into a stable state of lower expenditures counterbalanced by a smaller userbase and significantly reduced ad revenue, coupled to a dependency on lower-quality ads relative to pre-acquisition buyers. I'm hard-pressed to think of any changes that, at least in my experience, have qualitatively improved the experience, but the bleeding appears to have slowed, app reliability is reduced but not apparently an existential threat, much-feared competitors have had little effect on market share (particularly Meta and TikTok's dismal attempts at capturing Twitter users), and, while Bluesky has picked up a great many high-profile posters, Twitter has replaced that volume to some degree by becoming what's essentially a more socially-acceptable Gab. The only question is whether, given the predictable failure of Musk's attempt to become a subscription-based rather than ad-based business, its cash flow can support a balance sheet that's loaded up with debt based on an unsupportable valuation. Twixtter may be stable, but "stable" doesn't necessarily mean "surviving."
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Remember facebook threads? Those were the day (launch day that is).
- jseliger 3y ago
  I used to use Twitter to find interesting things to read, but de-viralizing links (and now the headlines don't even appear) has neutered Twitter for that purpose, and IME made it much dumber. Substack Notes is better for finding things to read but still small.
  - HillRat 3y ago
    bsky probably holds the most promise, but the platform’s going through some Eternal September growth pains right now, and it’s not clear what will emerge once federation is baked in. Nonetheless, most of my Twitter subgraphs have migrated over there in the last few months, so it’s finally getting a pretty crowded feel to it, at least for me. Not a drop-in replacement for Twitter, particularly on fast-moving breaking news, but Twixtter is no longer “where news happens” either.
retox 3y ago
No shit, the legacy media has done everything it can to sour advertisers on buying from the site because the ad money pool has begun to dry up.
nubinetwork 3y ago
Just wait until they start charging for accounts
- bytefactory 3y ago
  Apparently they just did exactly that. New accounts will start being charged $1/year.
andrewstuart 3y ago
Replacing links with images and no context is essentially a bug that Twitter hasn’t fixed. And the X rebrand is the same.

46 points by webwanderer 3y ago

paulpauper 3y ago

Doesn't seem too bad. The great 'Musk exodus' to many were predicting never happened.

glenndebacker 3y ago
In Europe we don't have any alternative to go too for now. The day that I have a bluesky code or threads is available I will drop it in a heartbeat.
throwaway5959 3y ago
To support the debt service they have now, the numbers need to go up not down or sideways.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
kalupa 3y ago
Speak for yourself! Everyone I know personally have left and re-founded the sources they followed there elsewhere. Anecdotal? Sure it is! All we're going to get from X is anecdote or lies about usage anyway, so why not lean into it, huh?
jrflowers 3y ago
This is a good point. The decline in traffic and active users is proof that nobody has stopped using this website. By a similar metric you can see, based off of its Alexa rank, MySpace is still the most popular social media site by far.
rvz 3y ago
It was complete hysteria a year ago from a highly emotionally charged audience. I think we have given the doomsday folks plenty of time for their predictions around the complete collapse of Twitter / X to manifest and it turns out that it did not happen and the platform is still alive. Obviously the so-called 'exodus' never happened and their top predictions have failed to come true [0]. But it just shows that even most HNers at the time fell for the media exaggerations because it was the click-bait trend. Happened with the so-called collapse of Meta and once again with Twitter / X. The deaths of both Meta and Twitter / X, have been greatly exaggerated. It is time to admit that such predictions like this [1] and this [2] aged extremely poorly 1 year on. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37295543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37295543 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36580669 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36580669 [2] https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-how-a-twitter-engineer-says-it-will-break-in-the-coming-weeks/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-ho...
- agentofoblivion 3y ago
  Downvotes by those that were in on the hysteria and don’t like to have to face that about themselves.
  - foderking 3y ago
    you are absolutely correct. Yall can downvote me too
genmud 3y ago
Well, anecdotally it feels like infosec and osint twitter are rotten husks of their former glory. There used to be vibrant discussions and commentary, but I guess it depends on what you do/follow on Twitter. MAU might be flat, but I can almost guarantee the bot or inauthentic traffic is what are keeping those numbers flat. Heck, a non zero amount of that inauthentic traffic has paid for twitter for purposes of spam or propaganda. Protip: you can generally tell a sites actual user base by the quality of ads and their ad revenue. They are running non brand safe ads and reports are their ad revenue is a fraction of pre-musk levels. I half expect them to start running straight up taboola ads at some point.

HillRat 3y ago

I think we're pretty much out of interesting things to say about post-acquisition Twitter (Twixtter?); it seems to have settled into a stable state of lower expenditures counterbalanced by a smaller userbase and significantly reduced ad revenue, coupled to a dependency on lower-quality ads relative to pre-acquisition buyers. I'm hard-pressed to think of any changes that, at least in my experience, have qualitatively improved the experience, but the bleeding appears to have slowed, app reliability is reduced but not apparently an existential threat, much-feared competitors have had little effect on market share (particularly Meta and TikTok's dismal attempts at capturing Twitter users), and, while Bluesky has picked up a great many high-profile posters, Twitter has replaced that volume to some degree by becoming what's essentially a more socially-acceptable Gab. The only question is whether, given the predictable failure of Musk's attempt to become a subscription-based rather than ad-based business, its cash flow can support a balance sheet that's loaded up with debt based on an unsupportable valuation. Twixtter may be stable, but "stable" doesn't necessarily mean "surviving."

ipaddr 3y ago
Remember facebook threads? Those were the day (launch day that is).
jseliger 3y ago
I used to use Twitter to find interesting things to read, but de-viralizing links (and now the headlines don't even appear) has neutered Twitter for that purpose, and IME made it much dumber. Substack Notes is better for finding things to read but still small.
- HillRat 3y ago
  bsky probably holds the most promise, but the platform’s going through some Eternal September growth pains right now, and it’s not clear what will emerge once federation is baked in. Nonetheless, most of my Twitter subgraphs have migrated over there in the last few months, so it’s finally getting a pretty crowded feel to it, at least for me. Not a drop-in replacement for Twitter, particularly on fast-moving breaking news, but Twixtter is no longer “where news happens” either.

retox 3y ago

No shit, the legacy media has done everything it can to sour advertisers on buying from the site because the ad money pool has begun to dry up.

nubinetwork 3y ago

Just wait until they start charging for accounts

bytefactory 3y ago
Apparently they just did exactly that. New accounts will start being charged $1/year.

andrewstuart 3y ago

Replacing links with images and no context is essentially a bug that Twitter hasn’t fixed. And the X rebrand is the same.