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Twitter launched in 2006 and didn't turn a profit until 2018. They're not making money now either and don't show any signs of stopping, so I agree it needs to h

Twitter launched in 2006 and didn't turn a profit until 2018. They're not making money now either and don't show any signs of stopping, so I agree it needs to happen at some point but I'm not convinced it's an immediate existential threat.

wpietri 2y ago
You're conflating being sustainable with turning a profit. I don't much care if Bluesky is ever profitable, but it sounds like it's pretty far away from being sustainable. I think Twitter is a bad example in a few other ways. At the time, Twitter was a pioneer, so on reason they were burning money was to figure out the landscape. That landscape is pretty well known now, and the experience of Bluesky is not wildly different than Twitter was a decade ago. Another is that Bluesky claims the aren't going for the Twitter- and Facebook-proven revenue model of ads, so we can't use Twitter's success to say much about Bluesky. But the biggest reason it's a bad example is that Twitter shows what happens when you're not sustainable on your own. Their original owners, VCs, pushed them to monetize through ads. Later, different investors kept pushing for more revenue, causing a lot of flailing inside Twitter without much success. (E.g., Vine's rise and fall, or when Twitter tried streaming NFL games.) And most recently, of course, Twitter's new owner gives a good example of why one doesn't want to be too dependent on outside money over the long haul.
- xelamonster 2y ago
  Fair points. Still--and I'm no financial expert and haven't looked at any data so maybe I'm wrong--I don't get the impression that they're in danger of going bankrupt within the next year, and a lot can happen in a year. I guess I just have more confidence that they are actively working on it and have the talent to figure this out before it's too late.
  - wpietri 2y ago
    Oh, I certainly believe they're talented at creating software and products. But those talents aren't well correlated with building businesses. If anything, I think it's negatively correlated. I hope they make it, though!

wpietri 2y ago

You're conflating being sustainable with turning a profit. I don't much care if Bluesky is ever profitable, but it sounds like it's pretty far away from being sustainable. I think Twitter is a bad example in a few other ways. At the time, Twitter was a pioneer, so on reason they were burning money was to figure out the landscape. That landscape is pretty well known now, and the experience of Bluesky is not wildly different than Twitter was a decade ago. Another is that Bluesky claims the aren't going for the Twitter- and Facebook-proven revenue model of ads, so we can't use Twitter's success to say much about Bluesky. But the biggest reason it's a bad example is that Twitter shows what happens when you're not sustainable on your own. Their original owners, VCs, pushed them to monetize through ads. Later, different investors kept pushing for more revenue, causing a lot of flailing inside Twitter without much success. (E.g., Vine's rise and fall, or when Twitter tried streaming NFL games.) And most recently, of course, Twitter's new owner gives a good example of why one doesn't want to be too dependent on outside money over the long haul.

xelamonster 2y ago
Fair points. Still--and I'm no financial expert and haven't looked at any data so maybe I'm wrong--I don't get the impression that they're in danger of going bankrupt within the next year, and a lot can happen in a year. I guess I just have more confidence that they are actively working on it and have the talent to figure this out before it's too late.
- wpietri 2y ago
  Oh, I certainly believe they're talented at creating software and products. But those talents aren't well correlated with building businesses. If anything, I think it's negatively correlated. I hope they make it, though!