<story><title>Thoughts about Twitter</title><url>https://nolancaudill.com/2022/11/04/thoughts-about-twitter/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mjr00</author><text>&amp;gt; But, what is gone? Twitter was a unique spot where journalists, celebrities, titans of industries, your family, friends and co-workers, would join a daily mosh pit filled with a mix of truly important cultural moments and the most inane things you’ve ever seen. [...] Twitter will likely go from Elon’s new toy that is too difficult for him to play with, to being passed on to his legal and finance advisers to sort out.&lt;p&gt;Regardless of your opinion on Elon, it&amp;#x27;s simply too early to conclude that this is &amp;quot;likely&amp;quot; to happen, or that all those people will stop using it.&lt;p&gt;For those old enough to remember, major social media platform changes have happened and users have sworn that it was (effectively) the end. Sometimes they are right: see new Digg causing a mass Reddit migration, or banning adult content on Tumblr, turning a dying platform into a dead one. Sometimes they are incredibly wrong: see new Reddit[0], or, amusingly, people who claimed that Facebook switching to an algorithmic news feed instead of chronological was the end of the platform. I can&amp;#x27;t remember how long ago that was, but I imagine Facebook has increased in userbase and value 3 or 4 orders of magnitudes since that change.&lt;p&gt;[0] Yes, I&amp;#x27;m aware old reddit is still accessible, but the vast majority of the userbase is on the mobile website or app.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>matwood</author><text>&amp;gt; Regardless of your opinion on Elon, it&amp;#x27;s simply too early to conclude that this is &amp;quot;likely&amp;quot; to happen, or that all those people will stop using it.&lt;p&gt;Agree. Twitter was a going nowhere dumpster fire &lt;i&gt;before&lt;/i&gt; the purchase. It&amp;#x27;s going to be a bumpy ride, but it could end up better or disappear. Either would be fine with me.&lt;p&gt;Everyone on this site (and even many non-tech people) had their own ideas on how to fix Twitter. It was a given that it was a mess. Musk had the money and hubris (I don&amp;#x27;t think he wanted to really buy it), to actually say hold my beer.&lt;p&gt;Regardless of what you think of Musk, he loves Twitter and now has a lot of financial incentive to make it function better as a business. So we&amp;#x27;ll see.</text></comment>
<story><title>Thoughts about Twitter</title><url>https://nolancaudill.com/2022/11/04/thoughts-about-twitter/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mjr00</author><text>&amp;gt; But, what is gone? Twitter was a unique spot where journalists, celebrities, titans of industries, your family, friends and co-workers, would join a daily mosh pit filled with a mix of truly important cultural moments and the most inane things you’ve ever seen. [...] Twitter will likely go from Elon’s new toy that is too difficult for him to play with, to being passed on to his legal and finance advisers to sort out.&lt;p&gt;Regardless of your opinion on Elon, it&amp;#x27;s simply too early to conclude that this is &amp;quot;likely&amp;quot; to happen, or that all those people will stop using it.&lt;p&gt;For those old enough to remember, major social media platform changes have happened and users have sworn that it was (effectively) the end. Sometimes they are right: see new Digg causing a mass Reddit migration, or banning adult content on Tumblr, turning a dying platform into a dead one. Sometimes they are incredibly wrong: see new Reddit[0], or, amusingly, people who claimed that Facebook switching to an algorithmic news feed instead of chronological was the end of the platform. I can&amp;#x27;t remember how long ago that was, but I imagine Facebook has increased in userbase and value 3 or 4 orders of magnitudes since that change.&lt;p&gt;[0] Yes, I&amp;#x27;m aware old reddit is still accessible, but the vast majority of the userbase is on the mobile website or app.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vineyardmike</author><text>It’s too early to claim it’s dead but he’s right that it’s a coin toss to see if the service can stay running (without downtime). With 50% layoffs (and the rumors of how lax their security was) it’s only a matter of time before the on-call needed to save some issue won’t exist. A breach or bug or something is inevitable. Remember when meta -a far bigger and richer company- messed up basic networking and took the company down for a day?&lt;p&gt;Regardless of how you feel about free speech, not everyone likes it. Even the perception that twitter is getting toxic will drive people away… except the toxic people. The only thing holding twitter up is that there’s no alternative for the people that matter - the “blue checks” who drive most of their traffic and engagement. Yet Elon managed to piss them off anyways.</text></comment>