Exactly.
This is Elon hate-porn. Some people LOVE to hate on Elon and make it out like every misstep he does is a DISASTER AND THE MELTDOWN WILL HAPPEN ANY MINUTE NOW!!!. No it’s not. Twitter is alive and well. Some heavy users are pissed I’m sure. But the whole ‘running it into the ground’ thing just isn’t happening.
If you disagree, my answer is simple- try using it. It works. Articles like this paint an awful picture of a service circling the drain that’s gonna go bankrupt any minute now. It’s clickbait, an article trashing him pandering to a bunch of people who hate him and want to see him fail.
To be clear- I disagree with a lot of what Elon’s doing at Twitter. I understand he wants to monetize AI scraping, but I also think that if he wants Twitter to be the ‘public square’ it has to stay, you know, public. As in no registration required, Google can index.
But I have no need to hate on the guy. If he runs Twitter into the ground or pisses users off too much, Mastodon and other fediverse platforms win. If he succeeds, then good for him. No skin off my back either way.
No it’s not. Twitter is alive and well.
It’s alive and if it dies, its death won’t be for technical reasons. It will be enough advertisers abandoning it for his creditors to force him to get something from it and sell it. But so far it is hanging in there.
To be clear- I disagree with a lot of what Elon’s doing at Twitter. I understand he wants to monetize AI scraping, but I also think that if he wants Twitter to be the ‘public square’ it has to stay, you know, public. As in no registration required, Google can index.
This AI scraping excuse sites like Twitter and Reddit are using is so disingenuous. This scraping isn’t new and hasn’t increased to the level where it is costing them anything. It’s just it now has hype and a price tag around it so they want their cut.
I don’t see Elon selling Twitter. He’s too far in. He paid $44bn for it, by most estimates it’s probably worth half that today (both due to lower traffic and Elon seriously overpaying from the start). So if he sells, best case scenario he takes a 50% haircut. Crazy or not he has a plan for the thing, so he’s gonna do his plan and if it works he’ll make a bundle and if not then it’ll shrink a lot. But I see him hanging on to it with a skeleton crew before he sells it.
This scraping isn’t new and hasn’t increased to the level where it is costing them anything. It’s just it now has hype and a price tag around it so they want their cut.
Well yeah, that’s what I meant. The costs of having someone scrape the database are essentially zero for Twitter/Reddit. The lost opportunity cost however is astronomical. Reddit and Twitter both are sitting on an incredibly valuable database of genuine interactions. And I understand not wanting to give that away for free.
Problem is, it’s too late. Reddit and Twitter have both been scraped already. So locking barn door after horse has left just pisses off the users.
I don’t see Elon selling Twitter. He’s too far in. He paid $44bn for it, by most estimates it’s probably worth half that today (both due to lower traffic and Elon seriously overpaying from the start). So if he sells, best case scenario he takes a 50% haircut. Crazy or not he has a plan for the thing, so he’s gonna do his plan and if it works he’ll make a bundle and if not then it’ll shrink a lot. But I see him hanging on to it with a skeleton crew before he sells it.
I don’t think he’ll sell willingly. I just could see a scenario where his creditors who paid for a large part of it demand to see some return on investment and force him too.
Well yeah, that’s what I meant. The costs of having someone scrape the database are essentially zero for Twitter/Reddit. The lost opportunity cost however is astronomical. Reddit and Twitter both are sitting on an incredibly valuable database of genuine interactions. And I understand not wanting to give that away for free. Problem is, it’s too late. Reddit and Twitter have both been scraped already. So locking barn door after horse has left just pisses off the users.
Agreed. The fact that especially Reddit, but a lesser extent Twitter have been unable to monetize genuine human posts and all the data that gives (Reddit is basically the only way to make Google useful nowadays and Twitter is basically the only place to go for breaking news) seems negligent to me.
But like you said, the horse it out of the barn. There’s no getting back that lost potential value.
