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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

#691

Post by aquova »

JasserInicide wrote: post #649
GMoromisato wrote: post #582

My predictions: 1. Musk is going to discover (and maybe admit?) that fixing Twitter is harder than he thought. It will be just like self-driving, which seems straightforward, but which actually has thousands of edge cases which are hard to solve with a single general system. Nevertheless, he will persist, because that's what he does. 2. Current Twitter makes a profit on advertising, which means Twitter needs to encou…

Musk is going to discover (and maybe admit?) that fixing Twitter is harder than he thought. Yeah I think he's going to intensely focus on Twitter for ~6 months, not change much, get bored, and then move onto something else.

This is my guess as well, but on a bit longer timescale. I think we'll see some noteworthy features over the next year as he tackles low hanging fruit(the reply button for example, although it sounds like that was already in development). This will be followed by a year or two of slow down as they run into social/technological issues, followed by Musk selling off the company.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#692

Post by GMoromisato »

JasserInicide wrote: post #649
GMoromisato wrote: post #582

My predictions: 1. Musk is going to discover (and maybe admit?) that fixing Twitter is harder than he thought. It will be just like self-driving, which seems straightforward, but which actually has thousands of edge cases which are hard to solve with a single general system. Nevertheless, he will persist, because that's what he does. 2. Current Twitter makes a profit on advertising, which means Twitter needs to encou…

Musk is going to discover (and maybe admit?) that fixing Twitter is harder than he thought. Yeah I think he's going to intensely focus on Twitter for ~6 months, not change much, get bored, and then move onto something else.

Maybe.

He hasn't given up on self-driving after it turned out to be much harder than he thought. He's still pouring money and time into it.

And he hasn't given up on Starlink, even though it is not nearly as profitable as he hoped originally. He's just launching more satellites.

And he hasn't given up on Starship even though it is years late. He's doubling down on its development.

But I conceded that he might not see Twitter as critical for his ultimate goals. Maybe he'll just sell it to a bigger fool in a few years?

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#693

Post by edmundsauto »

kjksf wrote: post #684
JasserInicide wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk is going to discover (and maybe admit?) that fixing Twitter is harder than he thought. Yeah I think he's going to intensely focus on Twitter for ~6 months, not change much, get bored, and then move onto something else.

The way he got bored running Tesla and SpaceX for ~20 years? I really don't get where this meme of "impulsive, erratic, hotheaded Musk" comes from given he demonstrated ability to stick with a business in the toughest of times. Tesla was literally days away from bankruptcy at one time and Musk made it work. After first 3 failed launches he was about to run out of money and yet he financed another launch, which worked…

Those companies are solving problems with logistics and engineering.

Twitter is fundamentally trying to solve a people problem, which is much fuzzier. Every impression I've had from "public Elon" is that he is absolutely wretched at people-problems-at-scale. I'm also not sure there is any human ever who has been able to solve people problems at Twitter's scale.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#694

Post by thinkingemote »

fooey wrote: post #325
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.

Part of his pitch during the acquisition was charging for embeds, so I would not be making any bets on the API loosening up

I wonder if this was part of the whole media / video embeds - so a musician could release music and news websites etc would pay for the embeds. Musicians could then get a cut of that money - or a cut of the advertising of it.

Maybe pay for no ads in the embeds?

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#695

Post by soderfoo »

yonaguska wrote: post #615
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.

> effective content moderation That's very subjective. "Misinformation" is more moderated than child porn and literal terrorist organizations.

It was an eye opener to see official Taliban accounts.

As abhorrent as I may find their ideas, if they play the rules, I'd actually prefer to allow them on the platform.

The eye opener was seeing others cheer on the silencing of academics, politicians,and physicians who's ideas may be out of step with the zeitgeist (or the mob's interpretation of what's apprpos).

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#696

Post by pie_flavor »

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…

Many people say they dislike Musk because of his ego, his shitposting, his tendency to lash out at critics, etc. I like him specifically because of those attributes: he may be the richest man on the planet, but he never gives the impression of being a lizard person like e.g. Bezos does. He's a normal guy, including plenty of normal-guy flaws, just an extremely successful one.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#697

Post by andirk »

grecy wrote: post #651
maxerickson wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if he just loses a big pile of money while Twitter twists in the wind because there isn't much of a plan? That seems likely enough really.

Looking at all musk has achieved so far - despite (or because of?) boards of experts adamant it couldn’t be done - I think it’s immensely clear a plan is something he clearly has and works very hard towards. Obviously many people will disagree with his plan, though I’m 100% certain he has one, and will make it happen.

I'm 100% certain he is quite literally the biggest internet troll of all time. His words have caused volatility in crypto and stonk markets, and all as jokes to himself. He demanded his California workers continue working in large in-person groups despite a deadly virus pandemic without a vaccine at the time. His plan was to dangle a carrot in front of Twitter that he'd buy, then pull the rug out. He once again violated really commonsense ETF/FCC/whatever laws and once again got bit. He's a genius in many ways, and a playground bully in others.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#698

Post by gambiting »

freejazz wrote: post #574
concinds wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people are focused on censorship/content issues, but I really think the X.com "mega app" vision is the most significant part of this. It'll be hard to gain a foothold in those markets, and there'll be antitrust challenges, but it really fits perfectly with the rest of Musk's vision: X.com Maps could tie in with Teslas, X.com Carhailing could tie-in with (future) full self-driving; Twitter could be expanded to be…

Are you serious? Why would I ever use that app? I already don't use twitter and there are market leaders that would have much better service (given they aren't trying to do every single thing in the world) compared to X and also, most of those services pretty much stink, so I would never think that X, while trying to do everything in the world, would also be better.

Well, you wouldn't do it by choice. I guess Musk really wants to build the WeChat equivalent for America, where to get anything done you really have to go through his app. They don't need to be best - they just need to make it inconvenient to not use it. And yes, it's an awful vision of the world.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#699

Post by drjasonharrison »

seydor wrote: post #474

- That is not a kitchen sink - Twitter is a telegraph office. Journalists love twitter because it makes their job easier by stealing stories/news from each other. For the world outside media twitter is pretty much meh. - Musk unbanning someone doesnt mean much. trump might have sent out tweets with carrier pigeons and the mass media would still pick it up because it sells. twitter bans have very little effect, from t…

It was supposed to be "let this sink in"

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#700

Post by RedBeetDeadpool »

julianeon wrote: post #57

In the spirit of trying to be high-information and add value: Where Musk is going, there are no maps. So it's very very hard to project. But we can predict likely developments. At a very high level, it's going to involve: bringing back controversial personalities like Donald Trump; increasing Twitter's commitment to 'free speech'; assuaging skittish advertisers; retaining users who might be concerned, while bringing…

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