Stop trying to make social networks succeed

While there are definitely those in positions of power attempting to exert control over populaces, you could also consider that not everything is necessarily the result of a perfectly coordinated conspiracy, and that Musk paid a particular price because he thought it would be hilarious if the number was a weed reference.

Well if we was doing it properly, then it would be pegged to an hour of minimum wage or half an hour in whatever country you was operating in.

> That other ad ran company is paying off influencers and 'cool kids' to be solely on their product with their ad and VC money while charging nothing. It will grow quickly while your site founders.

Maybe. But what if it was a cool kid celebrity who made the site in the first place? There's a bunch of them out there, and quite a few who want to make the world a better place. Maybe if the vision was explained to them they'd get on board for free.

And the counterpoint is that there's been plenty of social networks that have had cool kids jump on board that have turned out to be duds. Everyone was raving about that audio chat room one during the pandemic and I can't even remember the name of it now.

At least stop putting social networks into products where they don't belong... Looking at you Github.

I have a small agency and a product in a niche market and even there big consulting and IT services companies are starting spin offs to address these niches, and even bidding at a loss (especially when you take into account pre sales investments) to displace remaining niche actors like us.

I don’t see how conspiracy theory enters any of this whatsoever.

These are the declared plans from the man himself:

https://me.mashable.com/tech/27088/twitter-20-undergoes-a-ma...

That isn’t exactly hidden.

Perhaps the true intentions of Meta/Zuck/Facebook are underdisclosed, but after their KYC fiasco with crypto it’s clear they want to go there and just haven’t been able to cement the regulatory relationships yet or simply got on the wrong side of the regulatory compliance community and aren’t yet reingratiated into their good graces. But you will see another attempt at direct financial instrumentation on their properties as it’s the most valuable application of their data.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/01/28/faceboo...

And as to coordination, to deny attempts to concentrate power through coordinating the military industrial complex would be a foolhardy argument at this point, though there are clearly competing groups and philosophies.

I’m suggesting it’s more like a classic SV land grab… because that’s what it really is. And people’s connection and resultant financial enablement data is the prize underneath social networks, because it clearly is. And the person doing it is talking openly about what they are doing, so calling it a “conspiracy theory” is patently incorrect as a conspiracy would require some kind of secretive collusion to exist and all of this is discussed and public information shared by the architects themselves.

We should be concerned about how concentrated data collection and management is as the power is profound when combined with mature AI, not accusing one another of “conspiracies” at this point. I’ve long advocated for something like a “Privacy Bill of Rights,” but I fear the genie is too far out of the bottle now that the ruling classes have become aware of the profound technological potential of the data expressed through social finance.

After all, as they say, to control a city, control the water. A country? Food. The world? Finance.

I also don’t think it particularly matters what price was paid or whether it’s in the SEXY theme or 420 reference, as it’s common to see these kinds of number games among purchases by the super rich in my personal experience. It’s the general degree of size category of valuation that matters, not the numeric humor Elon injects into his numbers.

How many houses have I seen go for 1,234,567 or 2,345,678 in the offer paperwork? Same for cars and watch prices. I’ll say: more than a few. It’s all a game of points, leverage and reputation at the highest personal wealth levels. The self declared bon vivants consider themselves reincarnated Pharos destined to inherit the earth and love to play financial games with numbers on purchases and sales. That doesn’t make them any less of a business decision.