Ask HN: Why isn't Twitter / X dead yet?
14 comments
From my perspective, Twitter is better than it used to be - it now seems more dynamic with more of a "Wild West" feel than it used to have, and it seems to have more diversity of political opinions than it used to have. On the other hand, I've heard that some advertisers have pulled out and I don't know how Twitter has weathered that storm.
It seems to be in a position where you can't tell how well it's doing without logging in, so getting inactive users to try again, b/c it's thriving seems like a bootstrapping problem with no obvious solution.
If it's just a private company with a website that takes a dozen people to run, owned by the richest person in the world, then it could go on forever with any number of active users from zero to infinity.
If it's just a private company with a website that takes a dozen people to run, owned by the richest person in the world, then it could go on forever with any number of active users from zero to infinity.
Wealth != liquidity
Especially when free cash flow or an owner's liquidity is required quarterly by creditors. Even that is a big simplification: Elon has co-investors in what, to them, is a prestige investment. Getting diluted in down rounds dissipates a lot of prestige, so it is likely that any of Elon's money to prop up Twitter comes in via loans. That money comes from margin loans on TSLA which has a precarious P/E ratio. SpaceX's valuation, which is based on the post money valuation after a Saudi wealth fund bought 0.5% of the cap table, is very high but it's all illiquid. Starlink should have been ready to spin off at a fabulous valuation had it met subscriber goals, but it is about 10% of the way to 2023 goals.
Elon is an extremely rich man, and people like that have hobbies. The Washington Post, for example. But that cost about 0.2% the price of Twitter. Probably less than Bezos's yacht.
Especially when free cash flow or an owner's liquidity is required quarterly by creditors. Even that is a big simplification: Elon has co-investors in what, to them, is a prestige investment. Getting diluted in down rounds dissipates a lot of prestige, so it is likely that any of Elon's money to prop up Twitter comes in via loans. That money comes from margin loans on TSLA which has a precarious P/E ratio. SpaceX's valuation, which is based on the post money valuation after a Saudi wealth fund bought 0.5% of the cap table, is very high but it's all illiquid. Starlink should have been ready to spin off at a fabulous valuation had it met subscriber goals, but it is about 10% of the way to 2023 goals.
Elon is an extremely rich man, and people like that have hobbies. The Washington Post, for example. But that cost about 0.2% the price of Twitter. Probably less than Bezos's yacht.
It sounds like you are arguing that buying Twitter probably had a substantial negative financial impact on Musk. That sounds plausible, but I didn't intend to minimize it.
What I meant was that, aside from sunk costs, keeping the website nominally operational doesn't have to cost any significant amount going forward. Things are now arranged such that admitting defeat vs sinking more money in it are independent options.
Therefore as outsiders, we are unlikely to have useful information about whether it is now a "going concern" if he remains committed to keeping up a facade. It seems opaque, now that it is a members only site run by a private company.
What I meant was that, aside from sunk costs, keeping the website nominally operational doesn't have to cost any significant amount going forward. Things are now arranged such that admitting defeat vs sinking more money in it are independent options.
Therefore as outsiders, we are unlikely to have useful information about whether it is now a "going concern" if he remains committed to keeping up a facade. It seems opaque, now that it is a members only site run by a private company.
Im going to guess your politics are probably right of center. My experience is very different. I'm not very political and it used to be that I could mostly avoid politics. Now my feed seems to mostly full of right-wing trolls and relentlessly so even though I hardly engage. If I was a conspiracy nut I would go as far as saying Elon is trying to force a 'diversity of political opinion' or at least his version of it on my feed.
My politics are pretty moderate, neither left nor right for the most part. I would be annoyed if Twitter turned into a right-wing echo chamber but I like that it is now at least not dominated by the censorious side of the left. And I am probably a bit more into reading about politics on Twitter than you are, by the sound of it, and I am pretty used to seeing hardcore left-wingers and right-wingers yell at each other, so it does not bother me much. Another difference is that I do not use the feed, I pretty much only use Twitter when I follow links from other sites and then maybe jump around a bit browsing related threads. So if the feed is full of spam, it does not bother me.
> All the while X is doing all the worst things possible to destroy their own platform, yet it is still up and running somehow and the X competitors imploded in the process.
The spam on Twitter is nigh on unbearable -- I find myself the subject of a constant barrage of crypto mention farming spam, and paid-for ads with women in very suggestive poses.
It almost seems like Elon has turned the spam filter off completely -- I repeatedly see accounts with 300+ posts, each mentioning 15 people with crypto messaging (all in the space of an hour). There is absolutely no way such behaviour wouldn't flag anti-spam on any other fucking platform.
The spam on Twitter is nigh on unbearable -- I find myself the subject of a constant barrage of crypto mention farming spam, and paid-for ads with women in very suggestive poses.
It almost seems like Elon has turned the spam filter off completely -- I repeatedly see accounts with 300+ posts, each mentioning 15 people with crypto messaging (all in the space of an hour). There is absolutely no way such behaviour wouldn't flag anti-spam on any other fucking platform.
Stopped using Twitter. Realized it didn’t merit replacing.
The others probably shut down because the business looked doomed and unsustainable. Elon can afford to keep it running for just pride for a while with massive losses which they are probably incurring from their debt and advertising drop
It's this simple: Twitter is where most of the people I want to follow are. When they move on I may well follow them there. I did stop going there for a few years, found that I missed them and went back. With the Control Panel for Twitter extension all I see is just what I asked for, no ads, no random hot takes. And that makes for a very information dense news break that I look forward to once a day.
I'm an invisible Norm sitting at the bar in Cheers, except the place is full of many of the smartest, wittiest people I know of. You don't replicate that by just building another bar.
I'm an invisible Norm sitting at the bar in Cheers, except the place is full of many of the smartest, wittiest people I know of. You don't replicate that by just building another bar.
[deleted]
There’s a lot of inertia to a social network and Twitter had high mindshare in some key groups: journalists, celebrities, politicians, authors, academics, musicians, government agencies, etc. A lot of people use Twitter _less_ than they used to but still come back, especially for things like local news or a major event like the wars in Ukraine or Israel.
I do think the criticism of Mastodon is wrong, related to the previous point. It’s not that it’s hostile to non-tech folks but that it has the usual problems of a decentralized system: if you join, you will likely have problems finding people to follow. That’s no longer as hard as it used to be but I think that’s the strongest thing pulling people back to Twitter. It also seems to be softening as more people join Mastodon / Threads, and some organizations are putting out official servers because X has reminded them of the benefits of controlling their own presence where they can be absolutely certain their posts will not be displayed with literal Nazi ads.
I do think the criticism of Mastodon is wrong, related to the previous point. It’s not that it’s hostile to non-tech folks but that it has the usual problems of a decentralized system: if you join, you will likely have problems finding people to follow. That’s no longer as hard as it used to be but I think that’s the strongest thing pulling people back to Twitter. It also seems to be softening as more people join Mastodon / Threads, and some organizations are putting out official servers because X has reminded them of the benefits of controlling their own presence where they can be absolutely certain their posts will not be displayed with literal Nazi ads.
Bluesky is growing and scaling itself quite nicely. Around 3 million users now, I think.
A lot of non-tech folk are using it and the small team is doing seemingly weekly updates.
A lot of non-tech folk are using it and the small team is doing seemingly weekly updates.
Who are you asking?
Are you asking the people who quit logging in and assume it's dead but haven't seen for themselves?
Or are you asking the people who will pop up and say they're still there and it's better than ever?
Do you expect group "B" to tempt group "A" to log in again?
Are you asking the people who quit logging in and assume it's dead but haven't seen for themselves?
Or are you asking the people who will pop up and say they're still there and it's better than ever?
Do you expect group "B" to tempt group "A" to log in again?
When a site is as entrenched in the culture as twitter/x is it usually takes a loooong time to die - craigslist, yahoo mail are still very much around. That said Id be curious to know what the numbers are. Elon seems to be experimenting and he might yet pull this off
I have bases set up on Bluesky and Threads etc for when Twitter does implode, but in the meantime, the network is still valuable.
There is something to be said about seeing the downfall of a company or service in real time.
There is something to be said about seeing the downfall of a company or service in real time.
People are not looking for a new twitter even if people leave twitter.
I figured Twitter would die about last April, after firing/throwing away/laying off so much staff. I'm as much in the dark as you are.
I did return to Twitter this last fall, so as to be able to look at Tweets that The Grugq has in his daily newsletter, after about a years' absence. I found the amount of advertising, scammy advertising, literal boner juice ads, overwhelming. Despite his ranting and raving, Elon hasn't solved the bot problem, it appears there's more bots than ever.
I think that right now Twitter exists to squeeze the last little bit of value from advertisers.
I did return to Twitter this last fall, so as to be able to look at Tweets that The Grugq has in his daily newsletter, after about a years' absence. I found the amount of advertising, scammy advertising, literal boner juice ads, overwhelming. Despite his ranting and raving, Elon hasn't solved the bot problem, it appears there's more bots than ever.
I think that right now Twitter exists to squeeze the last little bit of value from advertisers.
Inertia
During the time that X was acquired by Elon:
Pebble / T2 (X competitor) shut down. (1)
Artifact (Another X competitor) shut down. (2)
Post.news is drastically losing traction with it's founder struggling to "kill X". (3)
Threads is faltering and lost over 75% of their daily active users since launch. (4) (5)
Spill is in invite limbo and many people lost interest.
Substack's competitor Notes didn't take off and people are moving away from the platform. (6)
Mastodon is still very hostile to non-tech folks, made no dent to X in user traction and still has major UX & discovery issues. (7)
Hive was a flash in the pan, turned off their servers and fell off with no roadmap. (8)
BlueSky is still stuck in invite limbo with no traction.
Clubhouse and Nostr aren't even on the map here.
All the while X is doing all the worst things possible to destroy their own platform, yet it is still up and running somehow and the X competitors imploded in the process.
If any other platform did what Elon has done they would have been dead a long time ago.
Why is Twitter / X not dead after all these months even when it is valued much less than what Elon purchased it for?
(1) https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/24/pebble-the-twitter-alternative-previously-known-as-t2-is-closing-down/
(2) https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/12/instagram-co-founders-news-aggregation-startup-artifact-to-shut-down/
(3) https://themessenger.com/tech/why-is-it-so-damn-hard-to-kill-twitter
(4) https://fortune.com/2023/08/04/threads-traffic-spiral-down-82-percent-launch-month-mark-zuckerberg/
(5) https://www.businessinsider.com/threads-meta-app-decrease-daily-active-users-mark-zuckerberg-2023/
(6) https://www.platformer.news/why-platformer-is-leaving-substack/
(7) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/apr/18/mastodon-users-twitter-elon-musk-social-media
(8) https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/12/hive-social-turns-off-servers-after-researchers-warn-hackers-can-access-all-data/