Advertising mostly. And it was actually making money until Elon's purchase saddled it with debts, then he scared off all the advertisers and messed up the subscription system, basically cutting off most of the income.
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Elon Musk - the world's "greatest" spiv?
- Thread starter brad465
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BananaRepublic
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Twitter has been losing money in every year it has existed, apart from 2018 and 2019.
In 2021 revenues were around $5 billion, but the company losses were $221 million.
2020 losses totalled $1.1 billion !!!
When Musk bought it, he said the loss making was unsustainable and radical changes to its financial model would have to be made, without delay.
His intention in buying Twitter was made quite clear, in that he wished to turn it away from its current social media iteration, into a completely different type of platform, largely based on a plan he worked on during his time with X.com and PayPal.
His “village square” idea is less social media chit-chat and more commercially based.
How he’s going to achieve his goals with the current meltdown seems an impossible task.
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Twitter was good as it was and they were trying to take it into new directions without success, and I can't see Elon having done any better even before he destroyed the platform.
It's stupid how every platform wants to be and do everything, so Instagram is now trying to be TikTok and so too is YouTube to a degree, even though content creators will get literally pennies instead of pounds for views.
Facebook also wants to be everything, hosting video and more.
Most users subscribe to a service for a particular purpose and I don't see that they want Twitter to be about videos, games, chat rooms and so on.
WhatsApp is also trying to become like a forum, and then you have Signal, Discord, Twitch and the list goes on.
These companies must realise they can't do everything.
It's stupid how every platform wants to be and do everything, so Instagram is now trying to be TikTok and so too is YouTube to a degree, even though content creators will get literally pennies instead of pounds for views.
Facebook also wants to be everything, hosting video and more.
Most users subscribe to a service for a particular purpose and I don't see that they want Twitter to be about videos, games, chat rooms and so on.
WhatsApp is also trying to become like a forum, and then you have Signal, Discord, Twitch and the list goes on.
These companies must realise they can't do everything.
The loss making only became unsustainable when Musk added billions of dollars of debt to the business which needs paying back to the new financiers.
But they are competing for advertising views, they have to do everything in the vain hope that everyone will switch to their app being the default one to use for everything. If the advertising spend is spread across multiple apps, none of them will ever turn a profit. In
The kind of adverts I’m seeing on Twitter have really gone downhill, all clickbaity stuff about minor royals and celebrities, or those ‘you’ll never guess what happened next’ ones that presumably take you to link farm site full of pop-up crap. It’s proper in the gutter now, down at the level of local newspaper websites. Can‘t be long for this world.
GS250
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I think coming off current social media apps isn't a bad thing. Getting tired of reading the jaundiced political viewpoints of those who live in a parallel universe. Or the daily whining and moaning about this that and the other.
I actually think traditional internet forums are relatively tranquil these days.
birchesgreen
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But enough of RailUK
Busaholic
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How reassuring that GCHQ apparently has (had?) a Twitter account. 
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
How reassuring that GCHQ apparently has (had?) a Twitter account.
Clearly not for Tweeting state secrets, but rather for publicity e.g. recruitment purposes.
Busaholic
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Nice for our enemies to be able to discover who's applying, then.
Nice for our enemies to be able to discover who's applying, then.
Erm, you don't apply for the job through Twitter.
Busaholic
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That'll foil Putin
brad465
Established Member
Musk's Twitter poll on reinstating Trump closes tonight and is currently in favour of him returning by 52-48% (well 52.1%). Where have we seen that before?
Just goes to show what a stupid, jumped up twerp Musky oblong is. Hopefully this will be his downfall.
Busaholic
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How much does Musk expect to earn, directly or indirectly, from this 'surprise! surprise!' result? - wonder how much time he spent fabricating that.
Elon will be doing it all by himself.
His fans are already saying he's a genius by proving that despite losing an estimated 80% of staff now, the service is still running. Therefore he was correct to let them all go.
The service has loads of glitches right now, and if anything fails I do wonder who will be around to fix them. Will Elon just switch servers off and back on to fix things?
I always read my feed as ‘latest tweets’ which just puts all the tweets by people I follow in chronological order, which is how I like it, yet today if I click on a thread then go back it’s somehow reverting to ‘top tweets’ all the time, showing me mostly stuff the platform curates in a random order that I don’t want to read.
It’s also dropping me back in the wrong place if I click on a tweet to read comments/threads, rather than taking me back to that tweet it’s dumping me several hours further down the feed. It’s been doing this for the last week or so.
Definitely some unherded gremlins in the system.
It’s also dropping me back in the wrong place if I click on a tweet to read comments/threads, rather than taking me back to that tweet it’s dumping me several hours further down the feed. It’s been doing this for the last week or so.
Definitely some unherded gremlins in the system.
...which was more-or-less the final result, so Musk has now said Trump will be reinstated.
Which is the right decision, but a rather odd way of going about it. Free speech applies whether a majority want to hear it or not, indeed it is rather more important to be protected when not the majority view.
Elon can do what he wants, but private companies don't need to allow free speech. They will also find themselves at risk of suffering the consequences if they let anything go.
Try setting up a community group on Facebook and letting members do and say what they want. If your members cross the line when it comes to the T&Cs, not only will they be sanctioned, but you risk the group being terminated as well as the accounts of the admins being suspended or deleted.
Same would apply here if anything was allowed to be posted. Indeed, this forum is so good because it has a level of control that stops it turning into 4CHAN or whatever.
I am sure the advertisers will be queuing up to give Twitter money now. Can't wait to see the videos showing how Elon has been vindicated and the platform is all good again. I think they'll be alongside the videos on 'Newly discovered Brexit benefits'.
Try setting up a community group on Facebook and letting members do and say what they want. If your members cross the line when it comes to the T&Cs, not only will they be sanctioned, but you risk the group being terminated as well as the accounts of the admins being suspended or deleted.
Same would apply here if anything was allowed to be posted. Indeed, this forum is so good because it has a level of control that stops it turning into 4CHAN or whatever.
I am sure the advertisers will be queuing up to give Twitter money now. Can't wait to see the videos showing how Elon has been vindicated and the platform is all good again. I think they'll be alongside the videos on 'Newly discovered Brexit benefits'.
brad465
Established Member
A user recently posted a long list of ways Twitter could be threatened in the near future, many of them appear to be made worse by a much reduced workforce and the World Cup potentially increasing demand for the site and its associated risks:
So Trump isn't coming back to Twitter anyway..
..because he's contractually committed to posting on Truth Social and nowhere else for at least six hours (apparently), as well as the fact that if he does start using Twitter again, Truth Social will likely die (of course it probably will sooner or later anyway, but I am sure some investors would rather delay it a bit longer).
I wonder if Elon knew this all along? Although I'm being too kind in thinking that, as that would make him clever and there's little evidence of that.
..because he's contractually committed to posting on Truth Social and nowhere else for at least six hours (apparently), as well as the fact that if he does start using Twitter again, Truth Social will likely die (of course it probably will sooner or later anyway, but I am sure some investors would rather delay it a bit longer).
I wonder if Elon knew this all along? Although I'm being too kind in thinking that, as that would make him clever and there's little evidence of that.
birchesgreen
Established Member
The automated copyright protection system on Twitter has broken so people are now posting full movies on there in 2 minute chunks. That'll go well.
AlterEgo
Veteran Member
Whenever I can’t quite make up my mind about someone I always look at their fan base to decide. Musk’s fans are sycophantic, mediocre and dull. It’s pathetic.
Cloud Strife
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There is a very interesting crossover between fans of Musk and fans of Jordan Peterson. They seem to latch onto self-proclaimed 'leaders', and they seem completely unable to conduct a rational analysis of that person. I appreciate Musk's willingness to really drill down on a topic, but it doesn't compensate for his other failings.
Which means that they're now going to alienate some very powerful rights holders. It really does look like Musk had no idea just how complex Twitter is, or that he's deliberately trying to tear down Twitter so that he can relaunch it as something 'new'.
AlterEgo
Veteran Member
Yes Peterson is someone else who immediately comes to mind, although I had strong suspicions about his neuroticism from the start.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
There are far easier ways to get pirated movies than watching them on Twitter 2 minutes at a time, so this is a bit of a non issue.
birchesgreen
Established Member
I don't really think thats why these folks have been posting those movies on there. I think its more to create mischief and show how the content moderation and copyright tools is basically nil now.
The real problem will be when more nefarious individuals start posting CSAM.
tbtc
Veteran Member
There’s a few quotes in Fight Club that sound quite prescient now, about the generation of young men brought up by women (due to the much higher divorce rates/ single parent families in recent decades)… guys growing up without a father figure, looking for some “authority” in their lives
So people latch on to someone they perceive as an Alpha Male (even if someone like Musk is just someone who grew up in a wealthy/ comfortable family (and not a guy who eats raw steak for breakfast, lunch and dinner)
We have Incels and other groups who were let down by the men in their lives (absent/ deadbeat dads etc) and received all of their love/ affection from women and have internalised that into a world where they hate women yet desperately seek a “daddy” to worship (hence the anti-feminism that seems to be on the rise)
Because you don’t believe in God, you elevate other man into positions of worship, you give them the uncritical adoration - Peterson felt like the first to tap into this - I think that the comparison with Musk fanboys is very valid (albeit I don’t know enough about Peterson as a person to know what he’d think of the calibre of fans he has)
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Yes, I did have the possibility of that happening in my mind. If it did, then that would likely result in it being forcibly shut down.
Surely people have always had idols - sports people, musicians etc - and this is just a different manifestation of it?
I think that is applying one scenario to everyone. I've never idolised my Dad or wanted to be him (despite having a lot of similar character traits), though I respect him and get on well enough with him. If anything I'm a "mummy's boy" and my sister is a "daddy's girl". But then they have the classic gender roles a bit reversed at times, he loves shopping so her idea of a good Saturday is to go to the Trafford Centre with him, while I would would rather gouge my eyeballs out (and my Mum hates shopping too...)
That said, there is enough of the "daddy" thing in the gay world, which I have never quite understood. I know a couple along those lines and they really do come across like father and son at times to the point it is easy to forget they are not. So there is something there I guess. Older gay guy who wished they had kids and fancies younger guys meets young adult who never had a father figure?
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