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

[atomheartbevo 90,650]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

If you think that isn't intentional, you haven't been paying attention.

Like was said, this is about the AI stuff scraping the web site, but I truly believe the endgame is to go subscription only.  

Twitter is only the 14th largest social media platform with 400 million or so users, but he’s crunched the numbers and would probably (happily) drop to less than a hundred million if he can get subs.  

[Grade of D as in David 13,255]

9 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Like was said, this is about the AI stuff scraping the web site, but I truly believe the endgame is to go subscription only.  

Twitter is only the 14th largest social media platform with 400 million or so users, but he’s crunched the numbers and would probably (happily) drop to less than a hundred million if he can get subs.  

Aren't Blue subscribers 0.2 percent of all Twitter users? I don't see how he gets to a meaningful revenue impact from subs.  Even if he lowered it to one dollar a month, I doubt he could even get 20 percent adoption, and even if he did that's just 1B a year in revenue before the apple and google cuts.

[NoName 17,148]

9 minutes ago, Grade of D as in David said:

Aren't Blue subscribers 0.2 percent of all Twitter users? I don't see how he gets to a meaningful revenue impact from subs.  Even if he lowered it to one dollar a month, I doubt he could even get 20 percent adoption, and even if he did that's just 1B a year in revenue before the apple and google cuts.

 

[Blotto 24,021]

21 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Like was said, this is about the AI stuff scraping the web site, but I truly believe the endgame is to go subscription only.  

Twitter is only the 14th largest social media platform with 400 million or so users, but he’s crunched the numbers and would probably (happily) drop to less than a hundred million if he can get subs.  

By less than 100M, do you mean maybe 4-5 million? Cause they would probably struggle to get that. As fewer people produce/consume content on the site due to all this bullshit, the value of paying for a subscription is diminished. From an advertising standpoint, this course seems certain to diminish revenue. I just dont buy that enough people will buy subscriptions to keep the lights on. Whatever. Something else will fill the void. It always does. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,731]

A fair amount of Twitter content is related to free content that Twitter takes from other sites, with the inherent acceptance from those other sites. You tweet out a NYT or Fox News story, those news sites allow Twitter to display a story pic and a short summary. There is a mutual benefit in that Twitter has content and a certain % will click out to the news site.

Put the tweet behind a paywall and the news sites may be inclined to want more including $$. Even if Twitter only requires a registration to see the tweet/content, why shouldn't the NYT tell Twitter that they want the registration info as well. Twitter says no, then the NYT might decide to block Twitter.

Twitter's only leverage is (was) their large user base which is dwindling by the day. 

[atomheartbevo 90,650]

1 hour ago, Blotto said:

By less than 100M, do you mean maybe 4-5 million? Cause they would probably struggle to get that. As fewer people produce/consume content on the site due to all this bullshit, the value of paying for a subscription is diminished. From an advertising standpoint, this course seems certain to diminish revenue. I just dont buy that enough people will buy subscriptions to keep the lights on. Whatever. Something else will fill the void. It always does. 

1 hour ago, Grade of D as in David said:

Aren't Blue subscribers 0.2 percent of all Twitter users? I don't see how he gets to a meaningful revenue impact from subs.  Even if he lowered it to one dollar a month, I doubt he could even get 20 percent adoption, and even if he did that's just 1B a year in revenue before the apple and google cuts.

He hates advertising and advertisers - he's made that abundantly clear with Tesla and now with Twitter.  And he doesn't "get" advertisers - when a bunch of them started pulling their ad buys from twitter, he tried to sic his fanbois on them, which is the absolute worst thing one could do in his situation.  His recent CEO hire was because he didn't want to deal with that shit, but I have a feeling his long-term goal is to ditch ads completely.

He also hates that people are able to use twitter for free - he's publicly stated as much, and doesn't understand the social media model where advertisers are customers and people are the product, and they are producing that product for free, even when people like Stephen King and Lebron James call him out on it and point out that they are the ones creating content for twitter, and that twitter itself is not producing the content.  He's very much in the mindset of software-as-a-service, "you use my software, you pay me a continuing fee" - just look at how he sells cars that he then charges additional fees for software extras.

He also still wants to make X.com happen.  Even though it's been a few decades, him getting pushed out of PayPal back in 2000 and his dreams of PayPal/X.com/etc. happening were dashed, still has to sting, because he's still obsessed with it.  And the whole X.com thing is one of those "OMG ELON WANTS TO BETTER HUMANITY LIKE HE DID WITH SPACEX AND TESLA AND MICROCHIPS IN OUR HEADS!"  He thinks he can improve everybody's lives if he could just get X.com off the ground (and make a huge chunk of money). 

Twitter is something that he could use to get X.com moving along, because he now has a potential built-in user base. I think he would sacrifice twitter as it currently exists, in order to purse X.com, and if that means shedding 75% or 85% of the users, so be it.  He is turning twitter into LiveJournal/Substack/Facebook/Blogspot/WordPress.com with the recent moves to a post limit of 25,000 characters (like 10+ pages of a standard novel) and 4 inline images.  He wants it to be a huge video player (ala YouTube).  Ironically, he fired all of the people who could have helped him make X.com happen.

It's actually weird that so many people missed that twitter is upping the character limit to 25,000 and 4 inline images.  That's working to change twitter from a simple social media platform that was the equivalent of a group text chat to something more.

[Blotto 24,021]

3 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

 

It's actually weird that so many people missed that twitter is upping the character limit to 25,000 and 4 inline images.  That's working to change twitter from a simple social media platform that was the equivalent of a group text chat to something more.

Its that I just dont care. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,731]

If Elon wanted to pivot 5-10% of Twitter users into X.com users, he didn’t have to pay $45B to do so. It’s crazy to buy a service that is valued at a certain level due to advertising and then push off that advertising. Even if he somehow turns this around and creates a success with x.com, this will go down in the books as the most unnecessary failure.

it would have been easier and cheaper to start from scratch.

[NoName 17,148]

3 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

He also still wants to make X.com happen.  Even though it's been a few decades, him getting pushed out of PayPal back in 2000 and his dreams of PayPal/X.com/etc. happening were dashed, still has to sting, because he's still obsessed with it.  And the whole X.com thing is one of those "OMG ELON WANTS TO BETTER HUMANITY LIKE HE DID WITH SPACEX AND TESLA AND MICROCHIPS IN OUR HEADS!"  He thinks he can improve everybody's lives if he could just get X.com off the ground (and make a huge chunk of money). 

Twitter is something that he could use to get X.com moving along, because he now has a potential built-in user base. I think he would sacrifice twitter as it currently exists, in order to purse X.com, and if that means shedding 75% or 85% of the users, so be it.  He is turning twitter into LiveJournal/Substack/Facebook/Blogspot/WordPress.com with the recent moves to a post limit of 25,000 characters (like 10+ pages of a standard novel) and 4 inline images.  He wants it to be a huge video player (ala YouTube).  Ironically, he fired all of the people who could have helped him make X.com happen.

the bolded line is really the truth.

he shed the teams working on future product, shed the teams working on current product.

he took what would have made a twitter > x.com migration way easier with a "hey, all the people you like are on twitter, but now it's called x.com and is like wechat" and crushed that by running a ton of high utilizers off the platform. then, like a fucking moron, he dismantled the verification system crushing the value of twitter when news is breaking as being the #1 place to go (when the Russia stuff was happening, TWTR sure wasn't useful like it used to be.) assuming TWTR still owns the vine name, he could have rolled out a tiktok competitor that was US-based and tied to what a ton of people had (Twitter account), but he crushed that dream by firing anyone who had any knowledge of that project. he ran off all the people doing cool shit and adding value to the platform via third party API (even if you discount 3rd party apps from this, there were useful third party tools and funny bots out there.)

he just doesn't get it. dude was set up well to make x.com a thing

oh yeah - and remind me, where is he on completely rebuilding and rewriting twitter's tech stack?

dude really is miles bron

[Grade of D as in David 13,255]

2 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

If Elon wanted to pivot 5-10% of Twitter users into X.com users, he didn’t have to pay $45B to do so. It’s crazy to buy a service that is valued at a certain level due to advertising and then push off that advertising. Even if he somehow turns this around and creates a success with x.com, this will go down in the books as the most unnecessary failure.

it would have been easier and cheaper to start from scratch.

It's like if coca cola said fuck it, you're going to learn to like new coke.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,731]

2 minutes ago, Grade of D as in David said:

It's like if coca cola said fuck it, you're going to learn to like new coke.

Coke didn’t shed most of its income and market cap on that failure. And even so, it’s a text book case of a bad business decision.

[NoName 17,148]

9 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

If Elon wanted to pivot 5-10% of Twitter users into X.com users, he didn’t have to pay $45B to do so. It’s crazy to buy a service that is valued at a certain level due to advertising and then push off that advertising. Even if he somehow turns this around and creates a success with x.com, this will go down in the books as the most unnecessary failure.

it would have been easier and cheaper to start from scratch.

not just valued due to advertising, but 90% of your revenue is from advertising. as of end of Q1 that number was down 89% since Musk bought it.

it is legit difficult to make your ad revenue go down that much in that little time. this is Sept/Oct 22 vs Feb/Mar 23 I believe.

Quote

According to a report by Bloomberg, last year, from September to October, the top advertisers on Twitter spent $71 million on ads. However, during the previous two months, that figure dropped to $7.6 million, a decline of 89%, Bloomberg cited research firm Pathmatics.

 

[atomheartbevo 90,650]

37 minutes ago, NoName said:

assuming TWTR still owns the vine name, he could have rolled out a tiktok competitor that was US-based and tied to what a ton of people had (Twitter account), but he crushed that dream by firing anyone who had any knowledge of that project.

The irony is thick.  If Musk had kept the Vine stuff going, with all of these would-be bans on tiktok, he would have been handed a massive amount of business without lifting a finger.  And now, because he's turning twitter into LiveJournal/Blogspot/substack/etc., as well as already opening up twitter to racists and conspiracy nuts, his competitors have the potential to take a chunk of his business.  Not very bright.

And tying into what Nice Guy Eddie said below, TikTok was developed in under 200 days, and within a year had over 100 million users with over a billion videos watched a day.  Musk had the money to develop his own platform.

41 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

If Elon wanted to pivot 5-10% of Twitter users into X.com users, he didn’t have to pay $45B to do so. It’s crazy to buy a service that is valued at a certain level due to advertising and then push off that advertising. Even if he somehow turns this around and creates a success with x.com, this will go down in the books as the most unnecessary failure.

it would have been easier and cheaper to start from scratch.

Agree 100%, but we are assuming that Musk was thinking in terms of a long game and wanted twitter as a business or a stepping stone to X.com, because there's lusting after something and fixating on it and paying way too much for it, and there's getting a group of analysts together, figuring out how much it's really worth, and making the appropriate offers, or at the very least, buying enough of it to have a say in how it's run.  I think he got fixated on it, and is now trying to make it his own.

Objectively speaking, Twitter actually would not have been a bad platform to tie into his X.com dreams if he wanted a WeChat competitor.  If you look at the top social media platforms in the US, only a few do the instant messaging thing, and only twitter was available:

1. Facebook - So many reasons why it wouldn't/couldn't happen, least of which is if Zuckerburg wanted a be-all app, he'd have it done, and arguably he's slowly working his way to something bigger that is far different than what Musk wants.
2. YouTube - haha, yeah, no, Google has their thing going on
3. WhatsApp - owned by FB
4. Instagram - owned by FB
5. Facebook Messenger - owned by FB
6. TikTok - owned by a Chinese company and way too big (and too many issues) for him to buy
7. Snapchat - Affordable for him, but too much of a singular focus that's not instant messaging as most people are used to
8. Pinterest - see Snapchat
9. LinkedIn - Owned by Microsoft, not instant messenger, if they wanted an X.com they'd do it themselves.
10. Twitter
11. Reddit - See Snapchat

All he had to do was take the Twitter staff as it existed before he took over, and put a bunch of people into making Venmo functionality (which he could have bought 10 years ago for less than a billion) and done a few things here and there (more of a Facebook-style homepage maybe, but the app would still focus on instant messaging/payments/etc.).

I think the time for a WeChat/be-everything clone may have sailed in the US, as more people use their actual phones for payments over the internet and in stores.

 

[Francisco 2.0 32,595]

2 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

I think the time for a WeChat/be-everything clone may have sailed in the US, as more people use their actual phones for payments over the internet and in stores.

 

 

That, and the regulatory hurdles to have an all in one app (banking! chat! cat videos! breaking news! interest bearing savings accounts! food ordering! ) in this country might be too large to overcome.

 

 

[BrickHorn 18,447]

6 hours ago, Ted Lange said:

 

 

There’s already a better fucking solution.

[Sawbonz 28,222]

Can ai not register for an account?

[atomheartbevo 90,650]

4 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

That, and the regulatory hurdles to have an all in one app (banking! chat! cat videos! breaking news! interest bearing savings accounts! food ordering! ) in this country might be too large to overcome.

Are you including bitcoin in the "banking" part of that app?

But yeah, if you look at Apple jumping into the banking and payment business, as well as Google's Google Pay app, it makes perfect sense - they don't care what social media or instant messaging app (although iMessages or whatever is on every iPhone), they only have to concern themselves with the financial part.  I'd argue that Apple (and Google) has seriously impacted chances of a WeChat clone coming to, and succeeding in, the US.  The people who would use such a thing for financial stuff are either already using their phones/Apple/Google Pay, or using Venmo on their phones ,or using something else (including banking apps on their phones).

Musk really missed out on this - Venmo was bought by PayPal for $800 million around a decade ago.

[Celery Man 21,098]

The change to turn off access to the website for unregistered users does make me wonder what…. percentage of users fall into that category? Obviously the heaviest users log in and tweet/engage, but I’m sure the number of people who go to the site but don’t/won’t create an account is non-trivial. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was actually a substantial proportion of the overall traffic, although it also wouldn’t surprise me if it was in fact fairly trivial. Turning off search for unregistered users removed a lot of the functionality but now of course the only choice is to register or just never go to the site at all.

[Schulz2.0 29,280]

27 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

The change to turn off access to the website for unregistered users does make me wonder what…. percentage of users fall into that category? Obviously the heaviest users log in and tweet/engage, but I’m sure the number of people who go to the site but don’t/won’t create an account is non-trivial. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was actually a substantial proportion of the overall traffic, although it also wouldn’t surprise me if it was in fact fairly trivial. Turning off search for unregistered users removed a lot of the functionality but now of course the only choice is to register or just never go to the site at all.

I don't have an account, but I check multiple accounts for sports and Ukraine news. With this last update I'm not using them at all.

[Pancho 46,312]

“Rate limit exceeded”

 

wtf is this shit

[Ted Lange 16,413]

[Bama Chick 28,596]

lol this nerd just can’t help himself

[Viking 301]

Turns out that Service Reliability team did actual real work. Another round of finding out for Elon.

[Ted Lange 16,413]

[Francisco 2.0 32,595]

"temporary"

 

LofuckingL.

 

 

[4th&Five 42,005]

Ha. No chance I’ve read 600 posts today and mine is saying exceeded. 

[atomheartbevo 90,650]

25 minutes ago, Ted Lange said:

23 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

lol this nerd just can’t help himself

16 minutes ago, Viking said:

Turns out that Service Reliability team did actual real work. Another round of finding out for Elon.

It really is stunning how little he knows about how twitter works, and how it's used.

It's like putting an 8 year-old in a car with stick shift and telling them to go crosstown to buy something at a store and then come back.  And the town is full of hilly roads with stop signs at the top.  He thinks he knows how a car works, he's seen his parents drive hundreds of times, and he's watched every episode of Paw Patrol.

[cactusflinthead 27,627]

It's going great!

[Prepuce of Doom 21,286]

I don't remember who the smoothbrain Elon fanboy was who kept arguing against the idea that Elon has been handsomely paid to be the public face/patsy for the destruction of Twitter, but I'd like to hear their current position on this issue. 

If that's you, and you still haven't checked out of this thread yet, how do you explain this? 

Edited July 1, 2023 by Prepuce of Doom

[cactusflinthead 27,627]

He's in a mood for sure

I wonder how much of this is due to mass blocking of shitty bluemarked idiots.

[Parliament 14,598]

I'm logged in and haven't gone over my daily limit.  Definitely didn't get a warning.  And yet this happens:

 

[tx 3 putt 78,682]

41 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

lol this nerd just can’t help himself

he took the wrong drugs today

Edited July 1, 2023 by tx 3 putt

[tx 3 putt 78,682]

Maybe musk can od or something. 

[Ted Lange 16,413]

15 minutes ago, Prepuce of Doom said:

I don't remember who the smoothbrain Elon fanboy was who kept arguing against the idea that Elon has been handsomely paid to be the public face/patsy for the destruction of Twitter, but I'd like to hear their current position on this issue. 

If that's you, and you still haven't checked out of this thread yet, how do you explain this? 

He goes by @HonkeyVape now

[Neonmoon 38,130]

We’re going to limit people from viewing our website 

Okay Advertisers, who wants to sign up for a another year of ads?

[Aqua Buddha 14,806]

 

[Dark Horse 2,429]

“Twitter is firing off about 10 requests a second to itself to try and fetch content that never arrives because Elon's latest genius innovation is to block people from being able to read Twitter without logging in. This likely created some hellish conditions that the engineers never envisioned and so we get this comedy of errors resulting in the most epic of self-owns, the self-DDOS.”
 

 

[HenryJames 67,368]

Chef’s kiss.

[NoName 17,148]

31 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

Ha. No chance I’ve read 600 posts today and mine is saying exceeded. 

You load like 40 per time you update your for you page or whatever twitter calls it. If I update it once per hour for my awake hours I top the 600 

[Prepuce of Doom 21,286]

14 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

Maybe musk can od or something. 

Should have been on that submarine. 

[Jatrain 288]

19 minutes ago, Parliament said:

I'm logged in and haven't gone over my daily limit.  Definitely didn't get a warning.  And yet this happens:

 

Reading elsewhere, it looks like replies to the tweet you’re may reading count against your limit, so if the tweet you’re reading has 10 replies that counts as 11. 

[NoName 17,148]

12 minutes ago, Dark Horse said:

“Twitter is firing off about 10 requests a second to itself to try and fetch content that never arrives because Elon's latest genius innovation is to block people from being able to read Twitter without logging in. This likely created some hellish conditions that the engineers never envisioned and so we get this comedy of errors resulting in the most epic of self-owns, the self-DDOS.”
 

 

Oh wow I never thought about them breaking it with some dumb change like log in issue. Amazing.

[tx 3 putt 78,682]

He cut back on staff, but he also cut back on servers ?

[NoName 17,148]

20 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

We’re going to limit people from viewing our website 

Okay Advertisers, who wants to sign up for a another year of ads?

Imagine the new CEO banging her head against the desk over and over and over for rate limiting users, which will absolutely crush any metrics or KPIs that any advertisers are looking for - or make it difficult for marketing companies to meet those KPIs and therefore make recommendations for any other website out there that sells ads.

Rate limiting because you fucked your entire app somehow is hilarious. So dumb.

 

Those tweets above are on my for you page lol

2 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

He cut back on staff, but he also cut back on servers ?

Closed data centers I believe.

Edited July 1, 2023 by NoName

[Celery Man 21,098]

Can someone please find the @THUJONE frame of Conor Brewer saying “Jesus tittyfucking Christ”?

[Stringer 1,487]

I wonder if my limit includes the 150 adds for bullshit companies I had to scroll through over the last day.

[Prepuce of Doom 21,286]

2 minutes ago, Stringer said:

I wonder if my limit includes the 150 adds for bullshit companies I had to scroll through over the last day.

[creepily excited Asian man with novelty airplane toy.jpg]

[tx 3 putt 78,682]

5 minutes ago, NoName said:

Closed data centers I believe.

[NoName 17,148]

 

 

 

 

 

[atomheartbevo 90,650]

49 minutes ago, Parliament said:

I'm logged in and haven't gone over my daily limit.  Definitely didn't get a warning.  And yet this happens:

Yep, happened to me without doing anything.

27 minutes ago, NoName said:

Oh wow I never thought about them breaking it with some dumb change like log in issue. Amazing.

23 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

He cut back on staff, but he also cut back on servers ?

21 minutes ago, NoName said:

Closed data centers I believe.

Yep, he had been talking about closing data centers for a while, and then a week or two ago that story about them not paying Google and trying to get all of their infrastructure off of Google's before Google pulled the plug for non-payment.  And Google already had the heads-up about Twitter not paying their bills - no way they were going to keep hosting them when the number is in the billion-dollar range.

I would love to know what they were going to migrate to - knowing Elmo, he's probably tried to have whoever is left repurpose every single computer they can get their hands on, whether it's server-grade or the cheap $300 PC that the admins use.