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How Much Longer Can Twitter Last, Really?

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Re: How Much Longer Can Twitter Last, Really?

#31

Post by adamrezich »

exabrial wrote: post #16

Can someone succinctly and definitively explain why everyone wants Twitter to fail? It's a beat to death news headline at this point.

"I don't like Elon Musk and it frustrates me that he managed to purchase Twitter even though everyone in my bubble told me it wouldn't happen and/or that the process of doing so would bankrupt him, and neither of those things ended up happening"

optionally, additionally: "also I liked Twitter better when only celebrities and friends of people who worked at Twitter could be Verified, because I was one of those friends, and I was Verified just like the celebrities, but the unwashed masses weren't, and that made me feel important and good about myself, and now that said unwashed masses can pay a nominal fee to become Verified, and Twitter is phasing out the older, unpaid Verified accounts, I'm going to take my ball and leave, because feeling more important than most people was a chief reason for me to use the platform to begin with. now come join me in moving over to $NEW_SOCIAL_FEED_APP and follow me there—where, you'll notice, my profile once again has an exclusive Verified badge of some sort, setting me apart from you, the unwashed masses."

Re: How Much Longer Can Twitter Last, Really?

#32

Post by dragontamer »

smotched wrote: post #28
dragontamer wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost none of these predictions have come true There's only one prediction that really matters in my eyes: the prediction that Elon would win the October 2022 court case and somehow get out of his contractual agreement to buy Twitter. Can the future be predicted? Ehh, probably not. But the thing that has held up time-and-time again is legal, contractual obligations. 1. Elon Musk is terrible at understanding contra…

None of those are/were predictions...

Were you around here for the last year? That bots and mDAU numbers are so awful that Elon Musk would obviously win the court case? TWTR stock price was $35 or less (despite Elon Musk's court-ordered offer of $54 per share).

Then, there was a prediction of "If forced, where would Elon Musk's money come from??". And I think everyone knows that Elon's #1 source of money is TSLA shares. Lo-and-behold, TSLA drops dramatically as Elon sells $10s of Billions to fund the Twitter deal.

This was probably some of the easiest money you could have made last year in the stock market. Short TSLA in 2022 (since Elon needs a source of funding) and long TWTR (because Elon would lose the court case).

----------

Now we have other, court-based predictions going on in this blog post. I'm not sure if there's much to trade on (maybe short Tesla? If Musk has to tap into TSLA shares to pay for these issues??)

Re: How Much Longer Can Twitter Last, Really?

#33

Post by adamrezich »

gary_0 wrote: post #24
smeeth wrote: post #9

A meta comment: since Elon’s takeover there has been an astounding volume of Twitter doom wishcasting. Almost none of these predictions have come true, and while I suppose they may eventually, the posts/articles getting increasingly difficult to pay attention to. Every time I see another of these my reaction is “god, another one?” I’ve been struggling to evaluate these articles on the merits, I’m sure I’m not alone.…

Elon/Twitter stories get clicks in part because of the "how's he going to get out of this one!?" factor. As the article points out, Twitter's financial numbers and upcoming liabilities don't look good. This is not subjective; Twitter is in bad fiscal shape. In some ways Elon walked the same knife's edge with Tesla and SpaceX (he himself admits how touch-and-go it was at various points), but he managed to pull it off.…

I thought it was quite well-understood that Musk has a long-term plan to turn Twitter into "the WeChat of the West", a centralized identity/payment platform, likely in the form of x.com?

Re: How Much Longer Can Twitter Last, Really?

#35

Post by brucethemoose2 »

dragontamer wrote: post #10
brucethemoose2 wrote: post #2

Option 3: Musk says something particularly offensive and starts an avalanche before these hammers even fall.

I don't think so. There's been a lot of especially stupid things said the last 4 years, and I haven't seen any real backlash to any of it. People like it when rich people say stupid things on the internet. Its how he grows his fanbase.

I dunno. He may not lose his fanbase, but there is a line where many advertisers will leave, which will make the remaining advertisers antsy and more prone to leave.

And this is not unprecedented. See: Kanye West.

Re: How Much Longer Can Twitter Last, Really?

#36

Post by gary_0 »

adamrezich wrote: post #33
gary_0 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon/Twitter stories get clicks in part because of the "how's he going to get out of this one!?" factor. As the article points out, Twitter's financial numbers and upcoming liabilities don't look good. This is not subjective; Twitter is in bad fiscal shape. In some ways Elon walked the same knife's edge with Tesla and SpaceX (he himself admits how touch-and-go it was at various points), but he managed to pull it off.…

I thought it was quite well-understood that Musk has a long-term plan to turn Twitter into "the WeChat of the West", a centralized identity/payment platform, likely in the form of x.com?

Sure, and he also has long-term plans to build a Tesla autonomous android, and a SpaceX Mars colony. I wish him the best of luck, but I'm not going to put money on any of those plans succeeding any time soon.

Re: How Much Longer Can Twitter Last, Really?

#37

Post by adamrezich »

gary_0 wrote: post #36
adamrezich wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was quite well-understood that Musk has a long-term plan to turn Twitter into "the WeChat of the West", a centralized identity/payment platform, likely in the form of x.com?

Sure, and he also has long-term plans to build a Tesla autonomous android, and a SpaceX Mars colony. I wish him the best of luck, but I'm not going to put money on any of those plans succeeding any time soon.

of those three things, turning Twitter into WeChat seems by far the most plausible, achievable, marketable, sustainable, and profitable—so, what point are you trying to make here?

Re: How Much Longer Can Twitter Last, Really?

#38

Post by adamrezich »

wootland wrote: post #11
adamrezich wrote: post #7

it seems to be working just fine despite all the layoffs. many of these complaints seem more political than practical. I understand that a set of people exists who are dissatisfied with twitter and/or are eagerly anticipating some grand implosion of the company, but many more people than this set use the platform, so questions like "how much longer can twitter last, really?" come across as having come from a very ins…

There have been constant problems since Musk took over. Just yesterday retweets were showing up in people's feeds without the attribution of who retweeted them, so they looked like random people showing up in your feed.

it would be hard to argue that the scope of the issues directly correlates with the scale of the layoffs

Re: How Much Longer Can Twitter Last, Really?

#39

Post by akkartik »

exabrial wrote: post #16

Can someone succinctly and definitively explain why everyone wants Twitter to fail? It's a beat to death news headline at this point.

How can anyone explain everyone?

Succinctly: I want Twitter to fail because Elon Musk violates contracts.

A little more: If he gets away with it, more companies will fire employees without paying severance. Toilet paper is also a perk worth preserving.

Re: How Much Longer Can Twitter Last, Really?

#40

Post by dvngnt_ »

adamrezich wrote: post #37
gary_0 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and he also has long-term plans to build a Tesla autonomous android, and a SpaceX Mars colony. I wish him the best of luck, but I'm not going to put money on any of those plans succeeding any time soon.

of those three things, turning Twitter into WeChat seems by far the most plausible, achievable, marketable, sustainable, and profitable—so, what point are you trying to make here?

I highly doubt twitter will be the wechat of the west. I don't think any app would be that at least for america for cultural/political reasons
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