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Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?

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Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?

#91

Post by collyw »

eropple wrote: post #16
seany wrote: post #5

It would only be better if they unbanned everyone and stopped trying to bend the messages sent over the platform. At the moment it seems like it might be better for it to just burn down, so something more open can replace it.

Do you think they should unban people who threaten to rape and kill people because they disagree about video games? If so, why?

While I agree that its not good to make these threats, does anyone take a bunch or gamers sitting in their mothers basements seriously when they make these threats?

Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?

#92

Post by sosborn »

olivermarks wrote: post #13

There's no reason a craigslist style nonprofit version of a service similar to Twitter couldn't launch. The open Facebook alternatives never took off though - very hard to get traction against deep pocketed and connected rivals. Doesn't look as though anyone is going to buy Twitter which is embarrassing for them

> Doesn't look as though anyone is going to buy Twitter which is embarrassing for them

It will be bought eventually. Everyone is just waiting for the price to come down, which is inevitable.

Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?

#93

Post by blackkettle »

bunderbunder wrote: post #70
laurencei wrote: post #46

I'm not going to pretend you can run Twitter on an DigitalOcean box for $40pm with one guy. But when I see things like $100m in losses - I can't help but feel there is a real opportunity for Twitter to streamline its engineering and operational costs? Is there a breakdown available of where/how they spend their money?

I don't know, but they do seem to need a lot of developers, and developers don't come cheap. Summingbird and Heron come to mind as quite-probably-very-expensive projects that seem to solve some very Twitter-specific problems. My completely uninformed, biased, pulled-out-of-thin-air suspicion is that said problems are largely self inflicted. It reminds me of Fog Creek's longtime insistence on using their own in house…

FogCreek uses their own in-house programming language? Is there more of a story there?

Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?

#94

Post by [deleted] »

bunderbunder wrote: post #70
laurencei wrote: post #46

I'm not going to pretend you can run Twitter on an DigitalOcean box for $40pm with one guy. But when I see things like $100m in losses - I can't help but feel there is a real opportunity for Twitter to streamline its engineering and operational costs? Is there a breakdown available of where/how they spend their money?

I don't know, but they do seem to need a lot of developers, and developers don't come cheap. Summingbird and Heron come to mind as quite-probably-very-expensive projects that seem to solve some very Twitter-specific problems. My completely uninformed, biased, pulled-out-of-thin-air suspicion is that said problems are largely self inflicted. It reminds me of Fog Creek's longtime insistence on using their own in house…

[deleted]

Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?

#95

Post by bunderbunder »

blackkettle wrote: post #93
bunderbunder wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, but they do seem to need a lot of developers, and developers don't come cheap. Summingbird and Heron come to mind as quite-probably-very-expensive projects that seem to solve some very Twitter-specific problems. My completely uninformed, biased, pulled-out-of-thin-air suspicion is that said problems are largely self inflicted. It reminds me of Fog Creek's longtime insistence on using their own in house…

FogCreek uses their own in-house programming language? Is there more of a story there?

https://blog.fogcreek.com/the-origin-of-wasabi/

https://blog.fogcreek.com/killing-off-wasabi-part-1/

Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?

#97

Post by stale2002 »

meira wrote: post #40

Twitter betrayed all developers that relied on their API, and also helped overthrow legitimate governments and put middle east and ukraine in chaos. Their failure is well deserved and should help other startups to not fuck with everybody while pretending to help (Google and Facebook, are you the next?)

Allowing people to organize themselves is "helping them overthrow legitimate governments"???

What, do you think twitter should start censoring everything that governments disagree with?

An open, non-profit twitter would probably allow people to do even MORE things like "overthrowing governments".

Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?

#98

Post by Scarblac »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #81

I think we are seeing a (vastly accelerated) version of turn of the century industrial politics. The ultimate (good) destiny if Google, Facebook and Twitter is as public utilities. This valuable data open to all and their connective abilities as useful and common to all as the road network. Should it be a non-profit. No it should be a utility

I'm confused, do you mean the Dot-com bubble turn of the century or something that happened around the turn of the 19th/20th century?

Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?

#99

Post by murkt »

meira wrote: post #40

Twitter betrayed all developers that relied on their API, and also helped overthrow legitimate governments and put middle east and ukraine in chaos. Their failure is well deserved and should help other startups to not fuck with everybody while pretending to help (Google and Facebook, are you the next?)

Speaking as a ukrainian, Twitter had little to do with the war in Ukraine.

Re: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?

#100

Post by andromeduck »

Rustydave wrote: post #12

How about charging users?. Like monthly plans etc.

IMO the best way would be to do microtransactions and go whale hunting. For example, you could charge a quarter for every character past the current word limit and a dollar per character after 200 and kill two birds with one stone.
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