Welcome to Hell, Elon • Hacker News Board

Re: Welcome to Hell, Elon

#111

Post by uni_rule » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 3:21 PM UTC

jongjong wrote: post #83

This article makes no sense; it sounds like leftist propaganda. Advertisers only care about 'brand safety' to the extent that it impacts their ability to sell stuff. So long as users keep using the platform, advertisers will keep coming back - They're not going to vacate the platform and let their competitors get all the eyeballs... If they did, those competitors would gain market share and make incumbents irrelevant…

If that initial statement about not caring about the ad's context were true the advertising companies wouldn't have torched Youtube's as revenue 5 years ago because explicitly their ads were played on unsavory content. It turns out they do care, probably not for moral reasons but presumably because some bean counter actively calculated that they'd lose more than they gained from such perception of being associated with Fringe viewpoints.

Re: Welcome to Hell, Elon

#112

Post by Schroedingersat » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 3:22 PM UTC

Bubble_Pop_22 wrote: post #44

nelsonic wrote: post #11

Never bet against Elon. Starlink alone will make more money than twitter ever could. If you don’t see the potential for Twitter. That’s fine. But don’t write an article about how it’s “hell” if you don’t have the vision for how to improve it. That’s like someone who has no idea how to cook leaving a bad review for food they could never hope to improve on. If Elon listened to Haters/Doubters like this Verge journo, th…

> Starlink alone will make more money than twitter ever could In a world where people are increasingly living in urban areas, fiber will annihilate satellite internet. Starlink is yet another niche thing which Musk is specialized in pursuing. In fact all of Musck companies can be summarized with "everybody has heard of them in the financial and technology press, but not many people use them"

> In a world where people are increasingly living in urban areas, fiber will annihilate satellite internet.

Fiber may be way better, but putting a glorified wifi router on top of a million dollars worth of kerosene and stainless steel is a great deal cheaper than digging a 1000km long trench.

There aren't many of them compared to the people in cities, but being able to serve the billion or so people that would have to pay hundreds a month for crappy microwave internet with somewhat less crappy space microwave internet sounds like a the one company he's running that isn't fleecing the taxpayers or investors.

Re: Welcome to Hell, Elon

#113

Post by Invictus0 » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 3:22 PM UTC

nelsonic wrote: post #11

Never bet against Elon. Starlink alone will make more money than twitter ever could. If you don’t see the potential for Twitter. That’s fine. But don’t write an article about how it’s “hell” if you don’t have the vision for how to improve it. That’s like someone who has no idea how to cook leaving a bad review for food they could never hope to improve on. If Elon listened to Haters/Doubters like this Verge journo, th…

Fanboying Elon on the twitter deal of all things is just hilarious. He paid $44B with no diligence for a company with hardly a billion worth of revenue, stagnating growth, a last-generation social graph, an incredibly toxic userbase, and a very demoralized staff--and he has no plan for how to fix it either. This will go down as one of the worst deals in history and here you are saying "but Starlink".

Re: Welcome to Hell, Elon

#114

Post by lemondrink » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 3:23 PM UTC

Is Twitter not dying? The youth don’t care, the elderly don’t care, and those in the middle (late twenties, early forties) are ending their terminally online lives for families, careers, travel, etc.

Twitter is being distilled into a political tool - both side, endlessly crying into the void, appealing to their confirmation biases.

Hop on over to /pol/ to see what unregulated politic speak turns into.

I give it 10 years and it’ll be a ghost town.

Re: Welcome to Hell, Elon

#115

Post by b0sk » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 3:23 PM UTC

nelsonic wrote: post #11

Never bet against Elon. Starlink alone will make more money than twitter ever could. If you don’t see the potential for Twitter. That’s fine. But don’t write an article about how it’s “hell” if you don’t have the vision for how to improve it. That’s like someone who has no idea how to cook leaving a bad review for food they could never hope to improve on. If Elon listened to Haters/Doubters like this Verge journo, th…

The article nails the inherent contradiction in optimizing for "free speech" and optimizing for advertising. He has burned 44 billion. He will bleed advertisers and legit users if it becomes a 4chan's pol board.

Re: Welcome to Hell, Elon

#116

Post by notacoward » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 3:23 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #46

I'm betting that something like the Google Circles gets implemented but at a higher level. In order to engage with certain people you have to be a member of certain groups/circles or not a member of certain circles/groups. These groups would be moderated by the people that run them. So instead of having Twitter pick and choose who is allowed on the platform, you crowdsource it to the people who want to moderate their…

> I'm betting that something like the Google Circles gets implemented

This would actually be a great outcome IMO. Supporting shared blocklists would have similar effect, and probably be easier to implement. Unfortunately, I very much doubt than Elmo Nutsack would allow that. Despite all his claims about "free speech" I'm pretty sure enabling those who would silence people they deem too "woke" via harassment is very much part of the reason behind his takeover. Check out the #TwitterTakeover tag to see the hordes slavering at the prospect (but be aware that it's hard on the stomach if you're a decent person).

Re: Welcome to Hell, Elon

#117

Post by Koshkin » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 3:23 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #75

erellsworth wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, I guess folks here don't like Key & Peele jokes.

Funny references alone will get down voted. It's just the culture of this board. If you want to joke you'll need some more substance as well.

Then it won't be a joke anymore...

Re: Welcome to Hell, Elon

#118

Post by hotpotamus » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 3:24 PM UTC

ultra_nick wrote: post #30

LatteLazy wrote: post #6

It's very very unclear to me why he bought it. He said it was about free speech but Twitter is already about as free as it's possible to be without permitting a whole bunch of content that is NOT protected under the first amendment (CP, calls to violence etc). And if it is about free speech then it cannot be an automated moderation play, because there is nothing to moderate if you're a pure free speech platform. The…

Twitter censors legal mainstream political opinions. Society can't discuss or resolve issues because half of every argument gets blocked. I'm convinced half the polarization in America comes from neither side understanding the other side's basic arguments.

Who do you believe legally won the 2020 presidential election? And do you think that that is a subject that has fruitful ground for discussion and compromise?

Re: Welcome to Hell, Elon

#119

Post by memish » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 3:24 PM UTC

nelsonic wrote: post #11

Never bet against Elon. Starlink alone will make more money than twitter ever could. If you don’t see the potential for Twitter. That’s fine. But don’t write an article about how it’s “hell” if you don’t have the vision for how to improve it. That’s like someone who has no idea how to cook leaving a bad review for food they could never hope to improve on. If Elon listened to Haters/Doubters like this Verge journo, th…

This is why so much hate is directed at Elon. His repeated success in different domains causes severe cognitive dissonance. It's an in your face painful reminder that success isn't entirely due to luck.

It's a lot easier to dismiss someone's success when it only happens once.

Re: Welcome to Hell, Elon

#120

Post by lastofthemojito » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 3:24 PM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #96

The key quote which other comments are overlooking: > Here are some examples: you can write as many polite letters to advertisers as you want, but you cannot reasonably expect to collect any meaningful advertising revenue if you do not promise those advertisers “brand safety.” That means you have to ban racism, sexism, transphobia, and all kinds of other speech that is totally legal in the United States but reveals p…

Elon has also talked about open sourcing "the algorithm" or letting people customize the algorithm that suggests content for them, etc. I suspect that plays in here - by default, Twitter users (and unauthenticated browsers) will probably continue to see Twitter the same way as today, with relatively safe, moderated content.

Logged-in folks will also have the option to go into unmoderated mode, which will drop you into the cesspool if you so desire. Presumably respectable companies will only advertise on the default layer; ads in the cesspool will be for "edgy" t-shirt companies and extremist politicians and others who don't care about their brand being displayed next to questionable content (or prefer it!).

Illegal content of course must continue to be moderated regardless.