Elon Musk: Officially a fraud and piece of shit. Official or unofficial war criminal?

[atomheartbevo 89731]

1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

It's an interesting podcast but I guarantee both are running through the Twitter departments/employees effectively making the employees provide reasons why they shouldn't be fired. 

 

[Captainant 27680]

30 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

Sacks was COO under Elon. Noted conservative. Calacanis is Elon buddy, angel investor. Liberal. Two different voices for him with regards to moderation. 

not sure I agree with your implied framing here of "conservatives want free speech, liberals want moderation"

[Neonmoon 38129]

How do you produce more Twitter innovation with half the workforce? 

[utee94 15832]

1 minute ago, Neonmoon said:

How do you produce more Twitter innovation with half the workforce? 

You fill the gap with AI bots that are programmed to innovate, obviously.

[Humble Beast 258]

1 minute ago, Neonmoon said:

How do you produce more Twitter innovation with half the workforce? 

The argument is that all of Silicon Valley have bloated workforces. Pretty sure most of the big companies have cut jobs. Not 50% though.  
 

Given that the All-In guys are involved, this episode gives a little more insight into what might happen. Starting 3 minutes in, and about 25 minutes long. They discuss Elon closing Twitter and what should happen now.  

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/all-in-with-chamath-jason-sacks-friedberg/id1502871393?i=1000584319009

 

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

4 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

How do you produce more Twitter innovation with half the workforce? 

Pay me first and I'll tell you.

 

[NoName 16354]

9 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

How do you produce more Twitter innovation with half the workforce? 

add in that you are limiting talent to only those who are willing to work in person + willing to work at twitter (this isn't SpaceX or Tesla where people believe in the mission and that + bonuses/stock options drive them) to backfill any open positions + anyone important who left in the last few months.

even if dollars are apples to apples, you have the option to make the same money from two companies...and one lets your work from home or is flexible about it while one has a hard requirement for you to commute into an office. this sounds like an easy decision.

24 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

There are already billion-dollar companies pausing their advertising with Twitter.  That should freak out Musk a bit, because there’s no government contracts in the wings to even out the revenue stream.  That thermocline article was spot-on.  But I don’t think Elon understands how Twitter actually works in terms of advertising - if GM or L’Oréal bail on him, there’s nobody else to fill that loss of reliable revenue.

let's see what IPG and the other big marketing companies do. i think everyone is going to slow play it...

 

Edited November 3, 2022 by NoName

[Bama Chick 28596]

If it makes y’all feel better: only about 1 in 5 American adults even has a Twitter account, and a small minority generates almost all of the content. It’s not a real place and doesn’t represent the majority of Americans, just a bunch of vocal Internet Americans which are often awful. 

That may be so but I bet 90-95% of journalists have Twitter and the influence of “Twitter Brain” is undeniable and unfortunately drives what gets covered in the mainstream media and cable news.

Loads of the culture wars bullshittery and moral panic nonsense that has become so prevalent begins on Twitter.

And lots of journalists and editors are lazy and use stories that trend on Twitter as a jumping off point.

[Goredho 17408]

5 hours ago, NoName said:

i thought this was an interesting thread:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1588115310124539904.html

Text:

 

  Hide contents

One of the things I occasionally get paid to do by companies/execs is to tell them why everything seemed to SUDDENLY go wrong, and subs/readers dropped like a stone.

So, with everything going on at Twitter rn, time for a thread about the Trust Thermocline /1

So: what's a thermocline?

Well large bodies of water are made of layers of differing temperatures. Like a layer cake. The top bit is where all the the waves happen and has a gradually decreasing temperature. Then SUDDENLY there's a point where it gets super-cold.

 

That suddenly is important. There's reasons for it (Science!) but it's just a good metaphor. Indeed you may also be interested in the "Thermocline of Truth" which a project management term for how things on a RAG board all suddenly go from amber to red.

But I digress.

 

The Trust Thermocline is something that, over (many) years of digital, I have seen both digital and regular content publishers hit time and time again. Despite warnings (at least when I've worked there). And it has a similar effect. You have lots of users then suddenly... nope.

 

And this does effect print publications as much as trendy digital media companies. They'll be flying along making loads of money, with lots of users/readers, rolling out new products that get bought. Or events. Or Sub-brands.

And then SUDDENLY those people just abandon them.

 

Often it's not even to "new" competitor products, but stuff they thought were already not a threat. Nor is there lots of obvious dissatisfaction reported from sales and marketing (other than general grumbling). Nor is it a general drift away, it's just a sudden big slide.

 

So why does this happen? As I explain to these people and places, it's because they breached the Trust Thermocline.

I ask them if they'd been increasing prices. Changed service offerings. Modified the product.

The answer is normally: "yes, but not much. And everyone still paid"

Then I ask if they did that the year before. Did they increase prices last year? Change the offering? Modify the product?

Again: "yes, but not much."

The answer is normally: "yes, but not much. And everyone still paid."

"And the year before?"

"Yes but not much. And everyone still paid."

Well, you get the idea.

And here is where the Trust Thermocline kicks in. Because too many people see service use as always following an arc. They think that as long as usage is ticking up, they can do what they like to cost and product.

And (critically) that they can just react when the curve flattens

But with a lot of CONTENT products (inc social media) that's not actually how it works. Because it doesn't account for sunk-cost lock-in.

Users and readers will stick to what they know, and use, well beyond the point where they START to lose trust in it. And you won't see that.

 

But they'll only MOVE when they hit the Trust Thermocline. The point where their lack of trust in the product to meet their needs, and the emotional investment they'd made in it, have finally been outweighed by the physical and emotional effort required to abandon it.

 

At this point, I normally get asked something like:

"So if we undo the last few changes and drop the price, we get them back?"

And then I have to break the news that nope: that's not how it works.

Because you're past the Thermocline now. You can't make them trust you again.

 

Classic examples of this behaviour are digital subscription services, where the product gets squeezed over time, or print magazines (particularly in B2B) that constantly ramp up their prices a little bit each year until it's too late.

 

Virtually the only way to avoid catastrophic drop-off from breaching the Trust Thermocline is NOT TO BREACH IT.

I can count on one hand the times I've witnessed a company come back from it. And even they never reached previous heights.

So what's the lesson for businesses here?

- Watch for grumbling and LISTEN to it.
- Don't assume that because people have swallowed a price or service change that'll swallow another one.
- Treat user trust as a finite asset. Because it is.

 

And I will admit this is one of the reasons I am (with sadness, because I've got a lot of value out of this place) watching Elon's current actions wrt Twitter with curious horror.

Because I've NEVER seen someone make such a deep dive for the Trust Thermocline, so quickly.

It's why I've got about 20 big accounts I'm watching on here to see when they personally feel he crosses that Thermocline and begin shifting their main effort and presence elsewhere.

Because that'll be the moment I suspect things will start changing very quickly. /END

 

Given our community history, I prefer the term "Scat Thermocline"

[wildcat09 29355]

38 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

 

Or the implication that conservative/liberal super rich, weird tech bros are representative of normal conservatives or liberals.  “They have very spirited debates on their podcast about all the most topical issues, like whether apocalypse bunkers should be stocked with only vegan food or if they should eat the flesh of the zombies they hunt, whether robots with artificial intelligence must give consent before you sexually violate them, or whether we should solve the energy crisis by enslaving everyone in Asia and harvesting their bodies for renewable power like in The Matrix.”

I would be shocked if the guys on that pod haven't discussed age of consent laws at some point.

[atomheartbevo 89731]

1 hour ago, utee94 said:

You fill the gap with AI bots that are programmed to innovate, obviously.

[Laxtonto 12090]

I am somewhat surprised that you guys haven’t discussed the rumors about a potential move of twitter to Texas, but I am not 100% sure it isn’t just a way to try and force additional employees to move on…
 

The large scale layoffs don’t really shock me. As I see it, if Twitter is moving away from large scale moderation and instead a model that includes user drive moderation and fact checking (as an example see the latest deleted tweet by the white house out the SS benefit raise and how it was labeled as misleading which prompted the WH to remove it) then how many of the “fact checkers” and content moderators that they have hired in the last 4 years do they really need to follow through on their more narrowed focus?

If you are going to move out of the content moderation space and instead only police those things that are illegal or blatantly against policy, knowing the tools Twitter has developed that are already in place, now you also have a reduced need of developers as well.

What made twitter development so difficult is the need to try and design algorithms that could deal with satire, humor, and a shifting lexicon of terms that changed in context and meaning daily or weekly. If you are no longer trying to manage “misinformation” that job becomes easier. As some one who works with and researches text mining, this is the “hard part” of gaining knowledge from text. Moving out of this space makes the technical needs much less grand.

Most blatant policy or illegal activity and term can be ran from a keyword screen or some other type of advanced filtering approach. Classifying “misinformation” can never be done with those types of lower tech approaches and require “thinking” or “learning” models that are just as subject to input bias as any individual person.

I think the 50% number may be a bit extreme but I would also not be shocked to see it as a move to force a culture change and we will see a wave of hirings in Q1 from different sectors.

[atomheartbevo 89731]

1 hour ago, NoName said:

let's see what IPG and the other big marketing companies do. i think everyone is going to slow play it...

There are already large companies pausing their campaigns.

Nobody outside of gold coin sellers and male supplement grifters wants to be associated with batshit conspiracy and racism lunacy.  They don’t want their promoted tweets/product placements next to tweets about how a bunch of dead kids are not actually dead, or how Tom Hanks is trafficking in little kids for their fluids so he can remain young (it’s not working).

And Elon doesn’t like being told what to do, or that he can’t stop corporate advertisers from bailing because he thinks this or that group of people should be given a large platform to spew their batshittery.

[atomheartbevo 89731]

21 minutes ago, Laxtonto said:

If you are no longer trying to manage “misinformation” that job becomes easier.

If you throw up your hands and don’t even try, that misinformation will ramp up like nobody’s business, because user-driven content moderation and fact-checking will eventually wear people down (both the end users trying to fight it, and the consumers who are tired of it) and they will go elsewhere - see the beauty of what used to be Usenet.  Bots on Twitter work amazingly fast and well at times.

And toss in state actors such as Russia and China that spend a shitload of resources on misinformation.  NAFO has done a really good job on fighting misinformation from the major channels and Russian government about Ukraine, but even they can’t catch all of the bots.

l’ve had the same primary email for nearly 20 years (and had my previous email addresses forwarded to it), going back through half-a-dozen different jobs and a couple of stints working on a political campaign, and I still get an enormous amount of misinformation/spam from actual political organizations tied to actual elected officials.  I don’t see this stuff unless I look in my spam filter (which I’ve put a lot of time into training). These people would be given free reign to spread that misinformation all over Twitter, and they could potentially buy a blue check.

21 minutes ago, Laxtonto said:

As some one who works with and researches text mining, this is the “hard part” of gaining knowledge from text. Moving out of this space makes the technical needs much less grand.

All major email providers make an attempt at filtering out spam/misinformation (and Google has a few lawsuits over that).  Other social media platforms do as well.

And I’ve been fighting spam and misinformation across various websites and servers I own/manage for around 15 years, and while the spam filters can kill a lot of it, enough makes it through to be a pain in the ass.  These days, I generally have comments off on most sites, and refer people to social media accounts I have associated with those sites, or I use third-party comment systems (which I fucking hate).

If Musk throws the doors open and misinformation ramps up, he’s going to have to force a subscription model because advertisers will flee. 

 

[YChang 3453]

5 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

When we start seeing select pols lose their access, as has happened to pols on the right, it’ll make more sense why there’s been so much bellyaching. 

And generally speaking what did the right wing pols do... to lose their access?

[elfenix 34312]

2 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Twitter is definitely missing out on better pay models that either give you something if you pay, or shut you out if you don't. As an example, users could set it up to prioritize tweets and comments from blue checks. Or even hide non-blue checks.  If you want to join the conversation, it helps to pay.

I would think they would be better off with less than $8/mo, at least in the beginning.

i'd pay $8 a month just to suppress all retweets

[Mole 4333]

1 hour ago, Goredho said:

Given our community history, I prefer the term "Scat Thermocline"

For one brief, beautiful run, Shaggy was the worldwide leader for sports and scat talk. Then the scat bros and sports bros couldn’t coexist and those of us in the middle were the real losers.

[atomheartbevo 89731]

6 hours ago, texasdago said:

Am I the only one who reads this and thinks of the Oilers?  Houston loved the Oilers.  Bum Phillips. Dan Pastorini.  Earl.  etc. etc. AND YET everyone was done with Bud Adams.  Once that trust was lost, Oiler fans were ready to pack Bud's bags for him.  

Best post in this thread.

And I’d like to point out that Bum Phillips died while surrounded by friends and family.

Bud Adams’ corpse was found after somebody had the police do a wellness check.

[Biff Tannen 45691]

1 hour ago, YChang said:

And generally speaking what did the right wing pols do... to lose their access?

[fattyflattie 4639]

18 minutes ago, YChang said:

And generally speaking what did the right wing pols do... to lose their access?

Voiced concerns on election integrity.  

[Anastasis 23475]

4 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

This is almost the exact equivalent of “You are a pansy for being scared of COVID, it only kills the olds and fat people.” Or “why do you worry about HIV, if you’re not gay or a drug user.” 

Substitute disinformation for COVID and millions of cognitively weak (demonstrably, undeniably weak) fellow citizens. 

 

If we are going with this analogy, I think that if some of you had your way the preferred response would be akin to the Dutch police releasing their attack dogs on lock down protesters. 

 

[Francisco 2.0 32395]

Looks like ole' Elon updated his Twitter profile recently.  He has a new residence and all:

 

 

 

[Sawbonz 27578]

On 11/2/2022 at 9:54 AM, Humble Beast said:

Literally the only people ever saying it would be a free for all are the naysayers in this thread. Please find someone else saying that here. You can’t. 
 

The only people upset with that will be a very fringe minority. 
 

 

[C-Man 27230]

6 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

Yeah, pretty obvious they aren’t the same. But the right wingers use it to spread disinformation, Twitters OG groups mission was to use it to win elections.  It the grand scheme, it’s a much more important tool to gain and retain power.  When we start seeing select pols lose their access, as has happened to pols on the right, it’ll make more sense why there’s been so much bellyaching. 

[Sawbonz 27578]

The $8 a month May be not be a bad idea. Think of how many morons there are. 

[Post Oak 20246]

7 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

The $8 a month May be not be a bad idea. Think of how many morons there are. 

Are you feeling ok man?

[Humble Beast 258]

 

[Doc Sam Beckett 5793]

1 hour ago, fattyflattie said:

Voiced concerns on election integrity.  

[Brian Fantana 6689]

1 hour ago, fattyflattie said:

Voiced concerns on election integrity.  

Show your work.

[Captainant 27680]

1 hour ago, fattyflattie said:

Voiced concerns on election integrity.  

Many people are saying

[Francisco 2.0 32395]

 

 

 

[Pig Bellmont 8719]

What could possibly go wrong?

[Bama Chick 28596]

And generally speaking what did the right wing pols do... to lose their access?

[Celery Man 20968]

44 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

What could possibly go wrong?

My assumption is that surely they wouldn’t do this, and I still can’t believe they would. The blue check is worthless as a “this is an actual person of some note who exists in the world” if anyone can buy it, it is less than worthless if anyone can buy it for any fake persona they create. If Twitter doesn’t *at least* prevent blue check accounts that spoof being real notable people, everyone should abandon the app.

[Bama Chick 28596]

My assumption is that surely they wouldn’t do this, and I still can’t believe they would. The blue check is worthless as a “this is an actual person of some note who exists in the world” if anyone can buy it, it is less than worthless if anyone can buy it for any fake persona they create. If Twitter doesn’t *at least* prevent blue check accounts that spoof being real notable people, everyone should abandon the app.

Believe it.

[atomheartbevo 89731]

5 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

My assumption is that surely they wouldn’t do this, and I still can’t believe they would. The blue check is worthless as a “this is an actual person of some note who exists in the world” if anyone can buy it, it is less than worthless if anyone can buy it for any fake persona they create. If Twitter doesn’t *at least* prevent blue check accounts that spoof being real notable people, everyone should abandon the app.

We already know that Elon does not understand how Twitter’s business model works, why verification helps, why some form of moderation is needed, and why a lot of people are banned - he literally makes multiple posts every week showing us that he doesn’t understand these things. He’s acting like somebody’s nephew that was given a division to run at a company that the kid knows nothing about.

Even if he dropped the price from $20 a month that he was talking about, down to $8, I’m still not paying nearly $400 a year to keep my blue checks.  
Most companies would grandfather that stuff in.  He’s not only not grandfathering us in, he’s making those blue checks absolutely worthless since nobody will trust them.

 Just means a lot of us will reduce how much we post on Twitter, and just use it to solely forward people to our own websites (which I already do, but I was posting some content to meet the minimum activity/notability/engagement/etc. threshold for the blue checks). 

This is impressive.  MySpace, GeoCities, AOL, etc. all took a while, a death by a thousand cuts, and usually multiple owners, to die off.  Elon wants to do it in one shot.  Can’t wait to hear how the tech bros spin this one.

[Captainant 27680]

2 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

This is impressive.  MySpace, GeoCities, AOL, etc. all took a while, a death by a thousand cuts, and usually multiple owners, to die off.  Elon wants to do it in one shot.  Can’t wait to hear how the tech bros spin this one.

He cucked zuck on the tech bro train wreck speed run 

[Buzzrock 14922]

7 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

 

 

That may be so but I bet 90-95% of journalists have Twitter and the influence of “Twitter Brain” is undeniable and unfortunately drives what gets covered in the mainstream media and cable news.

Loads of the culture wars bullshittery and moral panic nonsense that has become so prevalent begins on Twitter.

And lots of journalists and editors are lazy and use stories that trend on Twitter as a jumping off point.

 

 

Statistically almost no one watches cable news either. Thank God. 

[atomheartbevo 89731]

 

[Bookman 4639]

This Jason Calacanis?

 

 

[NoName 16354]

12 hours ago, elfenix said:

i'd pay $8 a month just to suppress all retweets

i just saved you $8 per month:

https://medium.com/@Luca/how-to-turn-off-retweets-for-everyone-99dd835c10f8

Quote

 

The easy solution to remove retweets from your timeline

Instead of turning off retweets for each account, you can mute retweets through the Twitter settings. It’s easy, it’s fast and if you don’t like it, you can reverse it with a single click. It doesn’t mess with existing settings (accounts you already turned retweets off). If you use the official apps it works across all of them. It can be done through the browser or an app. It removes native and original retweets
Step by step tutorial

•     Go to your Twitter settings
•     Choose “Muted words” (direct link)
•     Click “Add”
•     Add “RT @” as the phrase
•     Uncheck “Notifications”
•     Click “Add” to save it
•     Enjoy your calmer timeline

 

•  

[NoName 16354]

9 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

What could possibly go wrong?

 

i can't believe they aren't talking about implementing KYC as part of all that. that would be a game changer, just to only see people who are real...people.

9 hours ago, Celery Man said:

My assumption is that surely they wouldn’t do this, and I still can’t believe they would. The blue check is worthless as a “this is an actual person of some note who exists in the world” if anyone can buy it, it is less than worthless if anyone can buy it for any fake persona they create. If Twitter doesn’t *at least* prevent blue check accounts that spoof being real notable people, everyone should abandon the app.

i assume we are getting more check colors to get around this and to confirm that the writer Steven King is who he says he is and isn't some other random dude named Steven King who has self published 3 books on Amazon.

Edited November 4, 2022 by NoName

[Celery Man 20968]

1 hour ago, NoName said:

 

i can't believe they aren't talking about implementing KYC as part of all that. that would be a game changer, just to only see people who are real...people.

i assume we are getting more check colors to get around this and to confirm that the writer Steven King is who he says he is and isn't some other random dude named Steven King who has self published 3 books on Amazon.

Which would…. cause the blue check to only be valuable to musk. And I guess to the extent that it unlocks features to make you a preferred citizen. But that’s an entirely different thing and it’s almost like they could do that without killing the blue check that gives a lot of the platform content a degree of legitimacy.

I wonder what percentage of YouTube users pay for premium, or how much of their revenue is generated from that subscription. I do not, it’s not rational - that $8 per month would likely be better spent on that subscription than… say apple+. But I’m not going to do it and I think I’m similar to most YouTube users in that respect. Although I’m basically a boomer compared to how gen z uses YouTube so maybe I’m wrong. But I don’t see most individual users ponying up to get enhanced Twitter features, and I don’t see removing the current level of free service without killing the app.

Edited November 4, 2022 by Celery Man

[Neonmoon 38129]

Apparently there are laws one must follow with mass layoffs. 
 

 

[Sawbonz 27578]

Elon Musk seems like a stable genius

[Humble Beast 258]

17 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

How do you produce more Twitter innovation with half the workforce? 

 

[Laxtonto 12090]

15 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

Apparently there are laws one must follow with mass layoffs. 
 

 

Sorta. Funny enough this is generally covered under the severance package (if you notice the standard rumors all include a minimum of 60 days of severance) but I wonder if this moves forward it hurts anyone that was going to receive more than 60 days.

I doubt this leads to anything, and worst case he then sends them all home with pay for 60 days with notice of pending termination at the end  and let’s them go with no severance.

[NoName 16354]

1 hour ago, Celery Man said:

Which would…. cause the blue check to only be valuable to musk. And I guess to the extent that it unlocks features to make you a preferred citizen. But that’s an entirely different thing and it’s almost like they could do that without killing the blue check that gives a lot of the platform content a degree of legitimacy.

I wonder what percentage of YouTube users pay for premium, or how much of their revenue is generated from that subscription. I do not, it’s not rational - that $8 per month would likely be better spent on that subscription than… say apple+. But I’m not going to do it and I think I’m similar to most YouTube users in that respect. Although I’m basically a boomer compared to how gen z uses YouTube so maybe I’m wrong. But I don’t see most individual users ponying up to get enhanced Twitter features, and I don’t see removing the current level of free service without killing the app.

quick google says ~50 million youtube premium subs on ~2.1 billion MAU's - so about 2.38% conversion rate @ ~$143 / year (11.99/mo) = ~$7,194,000,000

twitter has ~400 million monthly active users, at 2.38% that comes out to ~9.5 million @ $96 / year (8/mo) = ~912m

the huge difference is that youtube premium >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> anything offered by twitter blue in my book. ad free + background play + download + youtube music (which i literally have never used)

 

  

24 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

Apparently there are laws one must follow with mass layoffs. 
 

 

not the first time this has happened. happened with tesla too

Edited November 4, 2022 by NoName

[washparkhorn 9939]

29 minutes ago, Laxtonto said:

Sorta. Funny enough this is generally covered under the severance package (if you notice the standard rumors all include a minimum of 60 days of severance) but I wonder if this moves forward it hurts anyone that was going to receive more than 60 days.

I doubt this leads to anything, and worst case he then sends them all home with pay for 60 days with notice of pending termination at the end  and let’s them go with no severance.

Agree. 
Just because the employees are "at-will," it doesn't mean no laws are involved. The most important one in a mass layoff is the WARN Act--Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. In California, if you terminate 50 or more employees in 30 days, you either have to provide 60 days' notice or pay them for 60 days.

https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/elon-musk-can-fire-anyone-he-wants-to.html
 

Edited November 4, 2022 by washparkhorn

[atomheartbevo 89731]

2 hours ago, NoName said:

I assume we are getting more check colors to get around this and to confirm that the writer Steven King is who he says he is and isn't some other random dude named Steven King who has self published 3 books on Amazon.

If Musk's own twitter postings are anything to go by, he hasn't thought that far ahead. I expect that he will change his mind again between now and next week - he seems to think he can do public popularity contests for major policy changes without thinking about advertisers who are planning ad buys out well in advance.  He clearly doesn't understand that twitter is not a product being sold to individuals (Tesla) or corporations/governments (SpaceX), nor is it a financial service that he can get a cut of (PayPal). It's a content platform that relies on advertisers being happy.

In terms of other colors, any other check colors will be ignored anyways - the value is in the blue checks, and Musk clearly knows that, however I don't think he has thought it through that a lot of twitter's worth for advertisers is tied up in those blue checks maintaining a semblance of legitimacy as well as the content moderation tamping down the batshittery.

Or to put it another way: There's a reason why the Alex Joneses and the Qanon websites and TruthSocial are running ads for male vitamin supplements and gold coins - the mainstream big bucks advertisers do not want to be associated with batshittery, especially if it's something like "that school shooting didn't happen, it's a bunch of actors and fake photos!"  

Selling the blue checks is going to be a shortcut to legitimacy for spammers and the lunatic fringe.