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$300m could buy you a hell of a lot of marketing, no? Then people could choose to use your product rather than be forced to. We’re side stepping the elephant i

$300m could buy you a hell of a lot of marketing, no? Then people could choose to use your product rather than be forced to. We’re side stepping the elephant in the room: X/xAI/Musk’s brand is toxic and forcing the product onto users is one of few paths available.

smeeth 1y ago
It did buy them a hell of a lot of marketing, Telegram has a billion users and those users are mostly in countries where Musk's brand isn't as toxic.
- mrweasel 1y ago
  It's honestly a good fit. Telegram also doesn't have the best image, but people don't care, so it's highly likely that they also don't care about the image of XAI or Musk. I do struggle with the 1 billion users, but I also don't believe that X has 600 million users actual users.
- kjkjadksj 1y ago
  You really believe 1/8th of the world is on telegram?
- overfeed 1y ago
  Telegram is ostensibly a competitor if you buy into Musk's pitch for X as an "everything app". Paying Telegram $300M instead of developing chat features and/or marketing proves that plans for the "everything app" are dead in the water, or perhaps were never sincere from the get go.
MangoCoffee 1y ago
>$300m could buy you a hell of a lot of marketing, no? a quick google search shown Telegram have 1 billion users worldwide. >X/xAI/Musk’s brand is toxic Is it?
- saubeidl 1y ago
  It sure seems so: https://www.arenaev.com/teslas_european_sales_keep_falling_while_ev_market_booms-news-4750.php https://www.arenaev.com/teslas_european_sales_keep_falling_w... https://electrek.co/2025/02/03/teslas-sales-drop-double-digits-in-the-us-biggest-ev-market-while-others-are-growing/ https://electrek.co/2025/02/03/teslas-sales-drop-double-digi...
- input_sh 1y ago
  > Is it? Yes.
  - andrewinardeer 1y ago
    I know my experience is anecdotal, however, I know at least three people at my workplace who have said in our Slack channel they will never, ever but a Tesla because of Musk's antics while typing it using a Statlink connection.
    - overfeed 1y ago
      It sounds like they'll buy an alternative product when one is available. Tesla, X, and xAI all have multiple viable alternatives - superior alternatives even. That's not yet the case for Starlink in many locations[0], but in 5-10 years, your colleague may be using an Amazon Kuiper, One World, Garmin[1], or Apple[1] connection. 0. Symmetric gigabit fiber Internet remains the gold standard, where one can get it, but unfortunately that's not many places. 1. I hope these companies are at least looking into doing these, as it's adjacent to their current products.
mattstir 1y ago
We'll have to see how privacy is handled (whether you can opt out of it suckling on every one of your personal conversations) but assuming some baseline decency from Telegram, I don't think anyone would be "forced" to use it. > We’re side stepping the elephant in the room: X/xAI/Musk’s brand is toxic and forcing the product onto users is one of few paths available This statement is baking in a lot of personal convictions, even if they feel self-evident. Telegram has a billion users and not everyone one of them will share those views. This setup is a lot closer to Google paying Apple and Mozilla to be the default search engine than some desperate attempt to get people to play with your toys.

smeeth 1y ago

It did buy them a hell of a lot of marketing, Telegram has a billion users and those users are mostly in countries where Musk's brand isn't as toxic.

mrweasel 1y ago
It's honestly a good fit. Telegram also doesn't have the best image, but people don't care, so it's highly likely that they also don't care about the image of XAI or Musk. I do struggle with the 1 billion users, but I also don't believe that X has 600 million users actual users.
kjkjadksj 1y ago
You really believe 1/8th of the world is on telegram?
overfeed 1y ago
Telegram is ostensibly a competitor if you buy into Musk's pitch for X as an "everything app". Paying Telegram $300M instead of developing chat features and/or marketing proves that plans for the "everything app" are dead in the water, or perhaps were never sincere from the get go.

MangoCoffee 1y ago

>$300m could buy you a hell of a lot of marketing, no? a quick google search shown Telegram have 1 billion users worldwide. >X/xAI/Musk’s brand is toxic Is it?

saubeidl 1y ago
It sure seems so: https://www.arenaev.com/teslas_european_sales_keep_falling_while_ev_market_booms-news-4750.php https://www.arenaev.com/teslas_european_sales_keep_falling_w... https://electrek.co/2025/02/03/teslas-sales-drop-double-digits-in-the-us-biggest-ev-market-while-others-are-growing/ https://electrek.co/2025/02/03/teslas-sales-drop-double-digi...
input_sh 1y ago
> Is it? Yes.
- andrewinardeer 1y ago
  I know my experience is anecdotal, however, I know at least three people at my workplace who have said in our Slack channel they will never, ever but a Tesla because of Musk's antics while typing it using a Statlink connection.
  - overfeed 1y ago
    It sounds like they'll buy an alternative product when one is available. Tesla, X, and xAI all have multiple viable alternatives - superior alternatives even. That's not yet the case for Starlink in many locations[0], but in 5-10 years, your colleague may be using an Amazon Kuiper, One World, Garmin[1], or Apple[1] connection. 0. Symmetric gigabit fiber Internet remains the gold standard, where one can get it, but unfortunately that's not many places. 1. I hope these companies are at least looking into doing these, as it's adjacent to their current products.

mattstir 1y ago

We'll have to see how privacy is handled (whether you can opt out of it suckling on every one of your personal conversations) but assuming some baseline decency from Telegram, I don't think anyone would be "forced" to use it. > We’re side stepping the elephant in the room: X/xAI/Musk’s brand is toxic and forcing the product onto users is one of few paths available This statement is baking in a lot of personal convictions, even if they feel self-evident. Telegram has a billion users and not everyone one of them will share those views. This setup is a lot closer to Google paying Apple and Mozilla to be the default search engine than some desperate attempt to get people to play with your toys.