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Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

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Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#231

Post by voxl »

darawk wrote: post #161
code_runner wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m always surprised when there are still people acting like Elon isn’t just BEGGING to be hated. I’m still of the opinion he is not doing the work and his success is mostly throwing money at eager (and smart) engineers. That’s a smart thing to do, good call on his part, but it’s almost like he doesn’t know that’s how his companies work. Maybe he is just great at running tech companies or something but acting like th…

How many rich people and fund managers around the world have been throwing money at engineers they thought were smart for the past several decades? How many have succeeded on the scale Elon has? "Throwing money at smart engineers" is not a novel idea. Executing it well is extremely hard, especially when cash has been cheap for the past two decades.

They typically just purchase the company instead. See: Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple.

Let's not forget that Elon Musk's real success has been in marketing. He has created a cult of personality, claimed his efforts are for the good of humanity (yet to be seen, especially with the way he treats his labor force, i.e. horribly). It's not a shock that Tesla stock is a _meme stock_. It is because of Elon's marketing.

Let's not even get into his market manipulation.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#232

Post by iamdbtoo »

torginus wrote: post #149
code_runner wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m always surprised when there are still people acting like Elon isn’t just BEGGING to be hated. I’m still of the opinion he is not doing the work and his success is mostly throwing money at eager (and smart) engineers. That’s a smart thing to do, good call on his part, but it’s almost like he doesn’t know that’s how his companies work. Maybe he is just great at running tech companies or something but acting like th…

If that's all he is doing - paying smart people and expecting them to work hard - why isn't literally everyone else doing the same?

Because success at that scale eventually requires you to exploit some percentage of your employees and most people are not ok with that.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#233

Post by JW_00000 »

thorncorona wrote: post #117
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #45

Just got this in my email because I signed up in Patreon as a supporter of a Mastodon node: "So our IndieWeb server has seen a 4,333% spike in users, and every day is a new record in daily new users sign ups .... In that same time we have done one major server upgrade, and have had zero down time, and as we screen all new users before joining, so far have had zero cases of spammers or scammers from inside the instanc…

You say this but people have tried this with voat.co against Reddit The only people who end up sticking are the ones banned from Twitter.

But on the other hand, this also happened with reddit when Digg launched v4...

(Although I agree with the general criticism that Mastodon is far from easy to use for the average non-techie.)

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#234

Post by darawk »

georgeg23 wrote: post #209
darawk wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many rich people and fund managers around the world have been throwing money at engineers they thought were smart for the past several decades? How many have succeeded on the scale Elon has? "Throwing money at smart engineers" is not a novel idea. Executing it well is extremely hard, especially when cash has been cheap for the past two decades.

The mastermind behind SpaceX is not Elon. It's this guy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career He gave Elon the ideas, initial team, govt connections, contracts, etc.. Elon was the company jester. Rocket landing work was taken from the DC-X

Even if we were to accept that as true as stated, which I don't, that doesn't explain Paypal and Tesla. Even if you think this Michael Griffin guy did everything - why did Elon bet on him? Why didn't anyone else? Tons of people had the money to do it at the same time. None of them did.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#235

Post by alsodumb »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #45

Just got this in my email because I signed up in Patreon as a supporter of a Mastodon node: "So our IndieWeb server has seen a 4,333% spike in users, and every day is a new record in daily new users sign ups .... In that same time we have done one major server upgrade, and have had zero down time, and as we screen all new users before joining, so far have had zero cases of spammers or scammers from inside the instanc…

Reminds me of the spike in Signal users in India when WhatsApp required all users to accept new terms.

Literally everyone I know used Signal for like, five days?

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#236

Post by PhasmaFelis »

gonehome wrote: post #102

Mastodon and federated systems like it will not succeed beyond a tiny niche, will not replace twitter, and don't even solve most of the problems they try to solve. They don't fix the upstream issues that lead to centralization. Incentives mean most users end up centralized on a handful of servers with a worse experience. It's the worst of both worlds. As designed the UX is bad and cannot be fixed because of these iss…

> Elon may not succeed, but I hope he does and what he's doing is a necessary prerequisite.

Everything he's done so far reads like he's deliberately trying to destroy the company. The only reason I don't really think that's his intention is that I don't see how he could hope to benefit from it. But it doesn't make sense.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#238

Post by darawk »

voxl wrote: post #231
darawk wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many rich people and fund managers around the world have been throwing money at engineers they thought were smart for the past several decades? How many have succeeded on the scale Elon has? "Throwing money at smart engineers" is not a novel idea. Executing it well is extremely hard, especially when cash has been cheap for the past two decades.

They typically just purchase the company instead. See: Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple. Let's not forget that Elon Musk's real success has been in marketing. He has created a cult of personality, claimed his efforts are for the good of humanity (yet to be seen, especially with the way he treats his labor force, i.e. horribly). It's not a shock that Tesla stock is a _meme stock_. It is because of Elon's marketing. Le…

> Let's not forget that Elon Musk's real success has been in marketing.

He has obviously been highly successful at marketing. But his "real success" has been in delivering products like useful electric cars and reusable rockets that didn't previously exist. His marketing skills help with that, but all the marketing in the world isn't going to sell a product that doesn't exist (except in crypto).

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#239

Post by kiba »

darawk wrote: post #234
georgeg23 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mastermind behind SpaceX is not Elon. It's this guy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career He gave Elon the ideas, initial team, govt connections, contracts, etc.. Elon was the company jester. Rocket landing work was taken from the DC-X

Even if we were to accept that as true as stated, which I don't, that doesn't explain Paypal and Tesla. Even if you think this Michael Griffin guy did everything - why did Elon bet on him? Why didn't anyone else? Tons of people had the money to do it at the same time. None of them did.

Nobody did everything. We all build upon the work of giants, Elon Musk and Michael Griffin included.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#240

Post by georgeg23 »

fsdjkflsjfsoij wrote: post #225
georgeg23 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mastermind behind SpaceX is not Elon. It's this guy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career He gave Elon the ideas, initial team, govt connections, contracts, etc.. Elon was the company jester. Rocket landing work was taken from the DC-X

The criticisms are getting more and more comical. Michael is a friend of Elon and trusted Elon with many of his ideas and contacts. I'm sure Musk would say as much. Do you think Michael was sharing these ideas and contacts with just anyone? Why do you think he specifically chose to work with Elon?

Mike saw Elon was good at recruiting Silicon Valley talent and selling the whole "save humanity by going to Mars" story (but even that was Mike's idea with Orbital).
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