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X is selling existing users' handles

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#41

Post by Krasnol »

arcfour wrote: post #30
bccdee wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Squatting is something you do to someone else's property. It implies that there is someone else out there with a more legitimate claim to the @hac handle, which there isn't. It's not as if we're talking about @google or something. If I stole your house and sold it because I didn't think you were using it properly, that would clearly be illegitimate. I don't see why the rules change when we talk about someone's twitte…

But you don't own it. X does. It's their service, they are free to apportion handles as they see fit. It is nothing like a house where you have an actual ownership claim through the deed.

This "ownership" or rather "identification" is a significant part of the service though.

It wouldn't have been so successful if everybody be called "Anonymous" meaning that they wouldn't be able to make money with it.

They've started to take this away now. Today it's some account with obviously few words. Tomorrow it might be one with wrong words. What you counted as value is nothing. It might be lost tomorrow, so why bother?

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#42

Post by applfanboysbgon »

arcfour wrote: post #30
bccdee wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Squatting is something you do to someone else's property. It implies that there is someone else out there with a more legitimate claim to the @hac handle, which there isn't. It's not as if we're talking about @google or something. If I stole your house and sold it because I didn't think you were using it properly, that would clearly be illegitimate. I don't see why the rules change when we talk about someone's twitte…

But you don't own it. X does. It's their service, they are free to apportion handles as they see fit. It is nothing like a house where you have an actual ownership claim through the deed.

[flagged]

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#43

Post by conception »

surround wrote: post #8

Your posts: https://twiiit.com/hac 2020 - "Ping" 2021 - "Pong" 2023 - "Boop." 2023 - "Bleep" 2023 - "will inventing new technology be the solution to our problems?"

People can use Twitter actively and not post. That’s not really a reason to take someone’s handle away.

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#45

Post by xrd »

throwawayq3423 wrote: post #40
xrd wrote: post #35

My 3 letter handle (xrd) is a cryptocurrency. I get all kinds of @ spam where people shilling a cryptocurrency tag me, assuming I'm associated. I really wish I could move the markets and make a quick buck somehow. I wish Elon would give me a way to sell it before they steal it.

> I wish Elon would give me a way to sell it before they steal it. Just put it online. Maybe use an escrow service. What's stopping you?

I just did a search, and the second link is escrotrust.com. But, the SSL cert is bad. This all looks a bit shady to me.

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#47

Post by xboxnolifes »

seydor wrote: post #44
segmondy wrote: post #20

I see lots of people defending this. What if the owner doesn't post, but reads and uses DM? What if they post the delete their posts when it gets old? Like Michael Burry?

[flagged]

But why should they have to use another handle just because someone wants it? Your handle is your online identity, and some people have built up theirs around it. Not everyone just chooses random strings for each service they use.

Of course, I'm only saying this for active accounts. If you've been inactive for a reasonable amount of time, sure, let someone else have it.

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#48

Post by gdulli »

davidw wrote: post #14
gdulli wrote: post #7

It gets lost in the distracting partisan bickering over Musk/etc, but Twitter has gotten hostile and crappy in many ways like this that have nothing to do with politics. Imagine how much more hostile this action would have seemed in 2010. But now, people put up with it.

As a 50 year old, I can recall a lengthy stretch of time in the US when lamenting the lack of a "white homeland" would not be considered "partisan", but extremely fringe speech that the mainstream would mostly shun.

Twitter is certainly terrible for those reasons as well. Terrible people are excusing apolitical enshittification because they're thankful the Overton window has been pushed down to where they live in the bottom of the barrel. You just can't say the latter part too loudly here because there's sufficient sympathy and affinity for it.

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#49

Post by pupppet »

surround wrote: post #8

Your posts: https://twiiit.com/hac 2020 - "Ping" 2021 - "Pong" 2023 - "Boop." 2023 - "Bleep" 2023 - "will inventing new technology be the solution to our problems?"

So if you sign-up just to be able to read Twitter's gate-kept content you should assume they can pull the rug out from under you?

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#50

Post by darth_avocado »

arcfour wrote: post #23
surround wrote: post #8

Your posts: https://twiiit.com/hac 2020 - "Ping" 2021 - "Pong" 2023 - "Boop." 2023 - "Bleep" 2023 - "will inventing new technology be the solution to our problems?"

I can't believe X would take back the account of such an active and valued member of the community who is clearly not squatting on the name or anything.

People have accounts and never post. Since X makes it mandatory to be signed in to read anything on the site meaningfully, there would be millions of such accounts with limited post history. And that doesn’t even include the fact that people sometimes go away from a platform for months for a variety of reasons.
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