The Bird has flown. And there go half the nestlings. That man is so strange

[dreamshark]

It really looks like The Chief Twit is literally determined to destroy Twitter. First he bombastically Freed the Bird and then he massacred his new organization in an unprecedented overnight orgy of messy layoffs. Who fires HALF THEIR EMPLOYEES during what's supposed to be an orderly transition? Unsurprisingly, the avian advertisers are now frantically flying the coop, taking most of the company's revenue with it.  

But why on earth would Musk do this? He knew the company was losing money when he bought it, and clearly had no viable plan to reverse that (I don't think that alienating all of his main sources of cash and firing half the employees counts as a viable plan, although accomplishing all that within the first week is an impressive show of energy). So presumably he intended it as a hobby, not a business. Okay, fair enough. When you are "the richest man on earth" you can spend your money on anything that amuses you, whether it's private bowling alleys in the basement or a campaign to stamp out malaria or getting all the grownups out of the way so you can play games with an online megaphone. But he keeps issuing these confusing statements about "needing a source of revenue."  WTF?  

Maybe the surprising thing is actually that this coked-up human battering ram was ever able to run a business successfully. Anyway, it should be fun to watch the death spiral. I never hated Twitter, but at this point I'm just as glad to see it go. It was a fun experiment but in the end I'm afraid the damage that it caused outweighed the fun. 

And it is so nice to see people taking this moment to return to my own favorite social media. Welcome back, friends! Let's talk!

Comments

[pameladean]

I'm not sure he really has ever run a business successfully, honestly. He seems to just think, "Ooooo shiny!" and buy things, which he then interferes in with more or less success, sowing rampant misogyny and racism in his wake. What he's doing to Twitter looks like some kind of deeply personal vengeance against who knows what or whom; but I don't actually want to know enough about how his mind works to see if that's what it is.

Twitter has been of vital importance to a whole lot of marginalized communities, notably disabled people and the smaller, sometimes "semi-professional" sff magazines, which have published a gigantic number of stories by people generally shoved aside by larger and more established magazines and publishers. Michael Thomas, one of the editors of Uncanny Magazine, did a long Twitter thread about how, when Twitter dies, the entire ecosystem of these magazines will collapse, to the general detriment of the field. Other editors and writers have done similar threads. It will be a genuine and not remediable loss.

A lot of small writers and artists also make a living via Twitter, networking, getting the word out to fans and potential fans, announcing sales. Many of them are also disabled. There is no comparable platform for them either.

Twitter had many problems and committed many indignities, some amounting to outright crimes, and I think Jack Dorsey is an asshole and probably Nazi-adjacent at BEST; but many people who had nowhere else to flourish did so in the interstices of all the garbage. I did not realize until people started announcing that they had been laid off, and what their jobs had been, how many people were actually working to make Twitter better for non-assholes. Not enough, that's for sure. But they were there.

I am not viewing any of this with any pleasure. I would be pleased if Musk were humiliated and thwarted and cast down from his high place, but that's all.

Rich people should not be able to do this kind of thing. The wreckage he's causing is unconscionable.

P.

[dreamshark]

Hmm. Sounds like Twitter actually did some positive good as well as being an amusing time-sink. It clearly also did a lot of harm to both individuals and society, but tbh I didn't use it for long enough to get much appreciation for the full range.

"Twitter has been of vital importance to a whole lot of marginalized communities, notably disabled people and the smaller, sometimes "semi-professional" sff magazines, which have published a gigantic number of stories by people generally shoved aside by larger and more established magazines and publishers."

How was Twitter different/better in this regard than Facebook or any of the other social media platforms? What makes you think one of the others can't grow to fill this niche?

That's a serious question, not a challenge. As I said, I didn't use it all that much, and have even less experience with other social media beyond LJ/DW.

[pameladean]

Twitter is where they get the engagement. Many of them have or have had a presence on other platforms, and some send out newsletters and so on, but engagement comes from Twitter. Their readers are there, the people who buy their jewelry and art, support their fundraisers, etc.

I've seen already that not everybody I want to keep track of from Twitter is going to the same place. There won't be the same concentration of people in any one place. Also, the other platforms that people are already getting accounts on just in case aren't equipped for the influx. They might grow eventually, but the gap in time is going to be very bad for artists and publications that are making it now, but not by much.

P.

[quadong]

I don't get the mechanics of firing half of the employees. Did everyone with an odd ID number get fired? Or was every manager told to lay off the bottom half of their team? If that, was it done starting at the bottom and working upwards so that half the managers got fired, too? Or did they fire everyone who does actual work, leaving only managers? Or were some divisions just entirely fired?