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It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

simonwillison.net

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Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#381

Post by simonw »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #158

'Twitter’s priorities are no longer even remotely aligned with my own.' Since when were they? The mistake was perhaps to ever think that they were. It was twitters 'priority to sell themselves to Musk, hence why they took him to court to ensure he bought them. This is a somewhat crazy, knee-jerk reaction to some news headlines, the author has no idea of what is really happening, i'm not saying that i do, but for exam…

I've been using Twitter for 16 years. I've known many people who work or have worked for the company - heck, they tried to hire me when the company was less than 20 people.

I have a friend who worked ON that accessibility team who I have known since university.

I know a fair amount about Twitter.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#382

Post by kcplate »

tchaffee wrote: post #219
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #176

I find this hilarious. We all understand that the core reason some people might want to hurt twitter is because it is no longer going to follow the moderation policy that they liked (namely, silencing people with different political opinions). Yet, people can't name this reason honestly, and invent some other thin weiled excuses like 'layoffs are baaaad and unethical'. Bold prediction: this influencer with 40k follow…

Or the simpler answer that doesn't fit your narrative is that lots of folks don't like Musk and his actions and his approach to running businesses. Lots of people find Musk repulsive. It shouldn't be a surprise that those people want to leave.

Wanting to leave on principle, but unable to leave because of your own impulses and needs are two different things. Personally I bet most folks come back after the dust settles, and I bet Musk is banking on that.

Case in point: I still see the “coexist” and lefty bumper stickers in the cars ahead of me at chick-fil-a drive through line pretty regularly. Everybody wants to protest and boycott products until you have that itch that only a spicy chicken biscuit can scratch.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#383

Post by simonw »

Kye wrote: post #369
atoav wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it is much, much simpler. I invest a lot of my time in putting content and thoughts onto a platform. If I doubt the future of a platform and already find the status quo questionable, I am just not as motivated to put in the time to do something on there. I guess for many people twitter was a platform they wanted to get rid of for a while, this is just a trigger to convince the others as well.

It's the Trust Thermocline: https://mastodon.social/@garius/109279394369832433

I should have linked to that in my post, because it was very influential on my thinking. It helped me realize that my trust in Twitter had just been completely decimated.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#384

Post by zikzak »

HereBeBeasties wrote: post #332
Aeolun wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m afraid I don’t understand how Twitter can end up with debt from Musk buying it. How does that even work? Twitter the company takes out a huge loan to pay the current shareholders a fortune (which is decided by those same shareholders, no conflict of interest there at all). But who the fuck would give them a loan like that (like you say, just to have Musk at the helm)?

There was $13 billion of debt used to finance the buy-out. It's a leveraged buy-out, so the target company owns the debt, not the buyer. How do you think that debt ends up getting paid off? It'll be close to $1 billion every year just to service that debt. Given that: * Twitter has only ever made a profit in 2018 and 2019 * That the profits it made in those two years were $1.2bn and $1.4bn respectively (only just eno…

It's also playing a role in his shareholders of Tesla view Musk. A recent Opening Arguments podcast explains how they could actually sue him for irresponsible behaviour that goes against his fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders. He basically tanked Tesla shares raising money for the Twitter deal. That's not maximizing the value of the shares, it's the opposite.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#385

Post by acdha »

concordDance wrote: post #263
tchaffee wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> basically we don't know Yes, it has been grossly mismanaged from a PR perspective. Expecting no fallout from that is naive.

Honestly there was no way to get good PR out of this. Musk is disliked by those who form "public opinion" and he's been threatening to make their home (twitter) no longer their home (by making it no longer reflect progressive values). There is no universe where Musk takes over twitter and gets good PR.

This is weird position to contrast with the widespread fawning coverage Musk received until the last few years ago, not to mention the claim that public opinion is set by progressives which ignores both the massive conservative media ecosystem and the generally centrist leanings of most other outlets. Conservatives like to dismiss the NYT, WaPo, NPR, etc. as progressive but that’s a ploy to avoid engaging with stories which make them uncomfortable and shouldn’t be confused with sober analysis.

The reason Musk has PR problems is simple: he creates them. No other CEO at his level has such an unfiltered stream of consciousness going public without a filter, and few have his taste for pointless stunts. The stuff which hurt his reputation wasn’t things like dating rock stars or having children with women other than his wife (this is largely priced in to the reputation of very rich men) but stuff like very publicly calling someone a pedophile out of pique from being outdone. He could stop that at any time and pretty much every employee and shareholder of his companies would be grateful.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#386

Post by acdha »

parkingrift wrote: post #347
hristov wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main difference isn't really who but how much money. One uses a lot of goods and services in ordinary life. Generally speaking one hopes that the provider of these goods and services uses their resources efficiently to provide them for a reasonable price including reasonable profit. When a leveraged buyout happens (this is true for most leveraged buyouts) a large cost is put into the business that wasn't there be…

Twitter was losing $360 million per year before Musk. These layoffs were going to happen whether Musk bought the company, or not.

Some layoffs, perhaps. There’s no reason to think they would be this large or haphazard, and without billions in new debt Twitter’s financial pressure would be far lower.

Their most profitable years would have been cancelled out by the new debt Musk brought, and that was before he tanked their ad sales.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#387

Post by simonw »

Looks like this blew up on Hacker News right after I went to sleep.

I would encourage people to read the first paragraph more carefully:

> There are many terrible stories emerging about how this went down, but one that particularly struck me was that he laid off the entire accessibility team. For me this feels like a microcosm of the whole situation.

That's not me saying "I quit because he fired the accessibility team".

That's me saying "There are many terrible stories emerging about how this went down" as a shorthand for how this has been one of the worst-handled layoffs I've ever heard of in my industry - see https://twitter.com/gergelyorosz/status/1588517143490199552

And then "For me this feels like a microcosm of the whole situation." - I'm using the accessibility team here as a single representative instance of how I feel about the decisions Elon has been making, but I disagree with practically every other decision he has made in the last 8 days.

I'm sorry (OK, not sorry) I didn't write a detailed essay about the many reasons I was leaving Twitter.

The goal for my post was to talk about the things I was liking about Mastodon so far.

I'd also encourage people to read about the "trust thermocline", which really helped me understand why, at least for me, things were going downhill far too quickly to continue wanting to ride it out and see what happens: https://mastodon.social/@garius/109279394369832433

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#388

Post by polishdude20 »

stefs wrote: post #133
polishdude20 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier to rally against some foe when that foe is one person. When it's a bunch of shareholders, the hatred is diluted.

that's exactly elons problem now. every unpopular action will be pinned on him personally. https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428132/elon-musk-twitt...

And at the same time, any of his company's accomplishments are often attributed to him. You become an idol so you receive the good and the bad feedback.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#389

Post by glenstein »

FortiDude wrote: post #335
glenstein wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.....or they would find an equilibrium that doesn't require massive centralization. Your analogy gets from point A to point be with a lot of empty speculation and hand waving.

My only assumption is that most people will choose an instance based on its reputation and that reputable instances will be far fewer than amateurish and unreliable ones. This is a very generous assumption and if we suppose people will choose even more randomly then the situation can only get bleaker. On the other hand you hand waved everything I said without specifically refuting any points, so what does that make y…

You're making assumptions about collective behavior leading to a runaway process. Your second sentence isn't coherent "hand waved everything [you] said", but I'm guessing you mean to suggest I'm handwaving away what you said. I am not doing that. I am saying I see no reason to assume one possibility over an equally plausible alternative, especially just reasoning from speculation.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#390

Post by dmix »

tchaffee wrote: post #271
dmix wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just go through the list of most popular Twitter users and ask yourself where else are they going to go? I personally wouldn't gamble the farm on corporation ad spending's adherence to social justice if those eyeballs are all in one place... at least long term. At least FB has to compete with messaging apps and Instagram/TikTok. Twitter doesn't have a good #2. It's probably a mistake to take the emotional outrage new…

You avoided my question. Can you provide your source for your claim about Facebook?

Oh sorry I didn't read your comment clearly. And no I don't think I need to support such a statement with a source. I'm sure you can find one.
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