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Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

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Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#561

Post by Dylan16807 »

munificent wrote: post #504
wzyoi wrote: post #349

I always wonder: how much honesty is in him? For example, he stopped talking about the bot population on the platform altogether after he could not get out of the deal. Was he honest about this being a big issue in the first place? For me, it’s not easy to believe this because this bot issue appeared right after Twitter staff did not like his speech, and talks with the CEO fell apart. Am I mistaken about how it all p…

Every one of us has run into situations where choosing to be honest has materially cost us. You accidentally scratch a parked car on your way out. Do you stop and leave a note with contact info or not? The richer you are, the more leverage you have and larger the material cost for these situations. A fellow rich friend gives you a little insider info that a stock you hold is about to crater. Do you sell some? In othe…

The wealthier you are, the bigger the cost of certain actions, sure.

I'm not at all convinced that the rate gets higher. I'll go ahead and bet the opposite, that the cost of being honest represents a smaller fraction of your wealth as you have more.

Somewhat analogous to "fuck you money". If you badly need a job, you have to be silent about many issues.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#562

Post by k__ »

fleddr wrote: post #547

Random thoughts. 1. I think any effort to figure out rational motives for this buy are in vain. It seems things just pop into his head and if considered a fun challenge, then why not? A child-like YOLO attitude. 2. Town square. The one thing that keeps Twitter standing is its cultural relevance. It is the town square for the elite (politicians, celebrities, experts). There isn't really anywhere else to go. An exodus…

While I'm no fan of Elon anymore, I think some change is desperately needed for Twitter.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#563

Post by kjksf »

yumraj wrote: post #221
cinntaile wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Starlink is a gamechanger, but I guess that's part of SpaceX?

But what's the size of the market? TAM may be huge, but what's a realistic SOM? In other words, how many people with hard wired fiber/coax will change to Starlink or will be be useful only for the rural/remote segment. Yes, there's some international, marine, flight etc. market, but, again, how big is that. Serious question - is there any real data?

"42 million Americans don't have high-speed internet"

That's just in U.S. Starlink is world-wide.

Back of envelope calcs:

$100/month == $1k a year.

1 million * $1k = $1 billion

10 million = $10 billion.

Estimated cost to replace all Starlink satellites every 5 years: $10 billion.

That's $2 billion a year.

Cost: $2 billion/year. Revenue: $10 billion/year. Profit: $8 billion/year.

Assuming only 25% of Americans currently without high-speed internet will opt for Starlink, not counting world-wide users, not counting commercial applications (boats, planes, gas stations), not counting using Starlink as internet backbone (i.e. alternative to under sea fiber).

Most likely Starlink will be a cash cow (and finance Mars colonization).

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/11/1098368187/42-million-america...

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#564

Post by freejazz »

Manu40 wrote: post #486
mullingitover wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> managing the exodus of users (size:?) that will happen regardless; This is probably the biggest risk in this acquisition. Twitter wasn't doing anything special, and it's easy to launch a clone of their business model. Elon's talking about taking an axe to the things that keep the lights on at Twitter: effective content moderation and talent.

> taking an axe to the things that keep the lights on at Twitter: effective content moderation and talent. I have experienced the 'effectiveness' of Twitters moderation team on multiple occasions where they were very ineffective at upholding the very clear cut rules surrounding things like doxxing on their website. I had my personal information made public, and they ignored me. Multiple times. I even created a new ac…

I think you are making the other poster's point for them, as Musk seems to have no interest in increasing the moderation.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#565

Post by reitanqild »

_fat_santa wrote: post #312
cutenewt wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's going to be more in the other direction. He really hates the bots, so he'll probably close up the API. Until bots gets solved, no developer should expect the API to open up.

The problem isn't the bots, the problem is the lack of differentiation between bots and real accounts. I say open up the API and let people make whatever bots they wish, but if you tweet through the API then you get a big "BOT" tag next to your username on the feed.

Telegram does something like this.

But it also allows (even encourages) third party clients, which can act on behalf of ordinary users.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#566

Post by mbesto »

_fat_santa wrote: post #312
cutenewt wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's going to be more in the other direction. He really hates the bots, so he'll probably close up the API. Until bots gets solved, no developer should expect the API to open up.

The problem isn't the bots, the problem is the lack of differentiation between bots and real accounts. I say open up the API and let people make whatever bots they wish, but if you tweet through the API then you get a big "BOT" tag next to your username on the feed.

Good example:

AwareOps tweets every time a solution goes down: https://twitter.com/awareops

Is that spamming bot stuff or useful or both?

How about the kid who wrote an app that tweets everyone position of a billionaire's airplane location?

That's the point.

> but if you tweet through the API then you get a big "BOT" tag next to your username on the feed.

What if I do this through Zapier? What about Hootsuite? Who's a BOT and who isn't?

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#567

Post by fleddr »

boplicity wrote: post #514
fleddr wrote: post #489

As for free speech vs censorship, a lot of people think in absolutes. It should be absolutely possible or impossible to say this thing. And this particular individual should be banned or not. What I think is far more important is the level of amplification. Currently, the most unhinged extremists from every political angle are massively amplified. They know exactly how to play the engagement game. Twitter rewards the…

This is exactly what good moderation can help with -- promote thoughtful and reasonable content, while making sure that inflammatory commentary gets less attention. I've run an online forum for over a decade; it's not that hard, really, to encourage thoughtful participation, with the right type of leadership. See what dang wrote: > please don't post low-information, high-indignation comments, such as flamebait or ide…

Indeed, the forum-style moderation will not work on Twitter.

What I'm saying is that all of these things: low-information, high-indignation comments, such as flamebait or ideological battle...

...can and perhaps should be allowed on Twitter. It shouldn't be removed, it should stop being amplified. When you do any of those things, your post should rank low, not high. It should get organic attention only, and no algorithmic boosting. It should have a low visibility and it should not lead to a massive amount of new followers.

So don't remove it, make it ineffective.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#568

Post by strangattractor »

fleddr wrote: post #547

Random thoughts. 1. I think any effort to figure out rational motives for this buy are in vain. It seems things just pop into his head and if considered a fun challenge, then why not? A child-like YOLO attitude. 2. Town square. The one thing that keeps Twitter standing is its cultural relevance. It is the town square for the elite (politicians, celebrities, experts). There isn't really anywhere else to go. An exodus…

Free speech argument is BS. Free speech cannot repay his investors. He plans to launch a TwitCoin or some other scammy type endeavor.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#570

Post by fleddr »

jahewson wrote: post #510
fleddr wrote: post #489

As for free speech vs censorship, a lot of people think in absolutes. It should be absolutely possible or impossible to say this thing. And this particular individual should be banned or not. What I think is far more important is the level of amplification. Currently, the most unhinged extremists from every political angle are massively amplified. They know exactly how to play the engagement game. Twitter rewards the…

> Twitter rewards the wrong thing. Those stoking controversy get the engagement This is human nature, not Twitter. And I think that’s the problem - a neutral platform simply reproduces human nature, amplified.

It's both. It's human nature amplified. The amplified part is technical, very much possible to tweak.
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