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this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2023
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Worth remembering that Twitter's problems didn't start with Musk's acquisition. He just redirected the city sewers into what was already a cesspool. Then took a piss in it for good measure.
I always cringe at this argument for tech companies. "Ohh, but they aren't/weren't profitable!"
That is by design. Any money that comes in, they double, triple invest in growth with some nebulous end goal that gets continuously kicked down the road to keep growing revenue year after year.
It's their business model to not be profitable.
They don't need to grow at break neck speeds. They can reduce spending and grow slowly at sustainable speeds if they choose. But they want to corner the domestic market, then then international market, then expand into adjacent markets, etc etc until they implode.
Same argument was made for ride share corporations during the gig worker reform initiatives. "Woe is Uber, they don't make money! They can't afford to give drivers benefits, or a minimum wage if rides are slow!"
No, they could have, if they didn't decide to throw mountains of cash on driverless R&D, international expansion, lobbying to kill taxi laws, subsidized ride rates in new markets, etc.
Same as Twitter paying celebrities to use their platform, news stations to adopt and push their platform, etc etc.
I wasn't talking about Twitter's profitability or lack thereof. I meant it was a breeding ground for trolls, brigading, bullying, and disinformation long before Musk took over. Musk made it worse, but it's funny how some people remember pre-Musk Twitter as this bastion of integrity and civil discourse.
I don't think I have been in a single social media platform that couldn't be described in such a way. Having come from reddit, that place was described exactly like that. Facebook is also infamous for disinformation. Social media has a lot of widespread problems, but people are way too quick to dismiss their merits.
But yes, Elon Musk made it worse. Now any asshole with $8 can stir up shit at the top of every discussion, getting in the way of the people trying to contribute or have fun. It's noticeably, significantly worse now.
I think the comment was in response to the problems that existed before. While this was about the economic problems, it‘s worth considering that both may be connected.
I don’t know about that. Twitter seemed like a pretty stable platform before the acquisition, not a platform on the decline. Lots of problems, but now it’s a whole different level.
It was "Stable", but money losing. Now it's unstable but money losing.
I think that really understates the financial difference. Before Musk, Twitter was at just about break even for years and even had a few profitable years. Now, X is near bankruptcy. It’s saddled with a billion dollar loan while revenue is simultaneously way down as advertisers flee. When I say that Twitter was stable, I also meant financially stable. They had runway to raise more funding or take out loans, and the user base and advertising was growing. X doesn’t have any of those benefits.