Data from two research firms and figures published by Musk and X suggest a deteriorating situation for X by some metrics. Musk has marketed it as the world’s “town square,” but in number of users it continues to lag far behind social media rivals that focus on video, such as Instagram and TikTok.
In February, X had 27 million daily active users of its mobile app in the U.S., down 18% from a year earlier, according to Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm based in San Francisco. The U.S. user base has been flat or down every month since November 2022, the first full month of Musk’s owning the app, and in total it’s down 23% since then, Sensor Tower said.
Whenever I get linked to twitter, it tries to get me to login when I just want to scan the thread… I back out everytime now.
Same. It loads the page where the tweet would be, then it seems like 2 popups cover it up, both about logging in. I immediately no longer care about viewing what I wanted to see, and close the window.
Honestly I feel like that killed Twitter more than many other changes.
People tell me "there’s no way he (musk) would intentionally crash his own company - it makes no sense - “he’s just terribly bad at business!”
But is he really THAT bad? In what world could these changes be made in which he’s actively trying to improve the company? If nothing else, seeing the negative backlash, bad publicity and dropping number of users wouldn’t any sound minded business owner at least temporarily undo some of these changes?
With any business, if you make a change that causes you to lose customers and get bad publicity… don’t you try to mitigate the damage done? Who goes balls to the wall on obviously bad decisions?
He’s that bad at business. On Twitter, Musk has no workers to contain his bullshit or create a good public image for him. Nor does he have enough workers to keep Twitter running smoothly as it used to.
My point is, look I’m a dumb white hick. I’ve never ran anything as significant as this. Just from the way the guy talks I can tell he has eons more experience than I do. His track record? Jesus Christ.
Still, if I were him I would’ve just… stopped. Long, long ago.
Yet he hasn’t. Admittedly, I’m a dumb fuck yet smart cookie compared to some but honestly what are the odds that with zero experience I could make better business decisions than this guy?
Make it make sense, ya know? Explain to me like I’m 5 why he would make decisions that are so obviously detrimental to the company? What are the odds that I could give better business advice than this guy?
Yet this is what he’s doing. He’s either purposely destroying it or has some weird master plan and I’m not sure I can be convinced otherwise tbh. We all see it, as bad as he seems to be there’s no way he doesn’t.
Elon sounds like he’s experienced, skilled and is approaching things from a theoretical or ethical or other grand point of view. He used to impress me with his approach on building an electric car company with full self-driving vehicles in the 2010’s. I wasn’t a full believer, but I thought he was competent and wanted Tesla to succeed.
Then he went and bought Twitter. As a software engineer all my life, and in the startup scene, and having worked in a failed social media platform, I have some experience. Everything he’s said about Twitter is crap and everything he’s done is stupid. And the results speak for themselves.
I’ve seen people say that Elon sounds great about things they don’t know too much about. But when the topic comes to things they do understand, Elon clearly is wrong.
He started his career with hundreds of millions of dollars, and he bet it all on a couple of businesses be bought (he was never a founder, always a purchaser).
Basically he’s been lucky twice (Paypal and Tesla), but each of these won 10-100x on his initial stake.
Basically he’s been lucky twice (Paypal and Tesla), but each of these won 10-100x on his initial stake.
From what I’ve heard about his time at Paypal he really lucked out by basically being pushed out of the company with a golden parachute to ride out on.
He used to impress me with his approach on building an electric car company with full self-driving vehicles in the 2010’s. I wasn’t a full believer, but I thought he was competent and wanted Tesla to succeed.
Elon Musk didn’t build the company.
Elon Musk invested into the company, and then sued Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning into giving him “Founder” status. When Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning left the company, it all started to go to shit. Sure there’s some momentum, but by 2015+, its clear that Elon Musk’s buffoonery has taken over (ex: using Tesla money to buy his cousin’s company SolarCity) and today we have 100% Elon bullshit like Cybertruck.
Elon Musk didn’t build the company.
Elon Musk invested into the company,
That’s what I said a couple of paragraphs later
It’s not a meritocracy. That’s basically all there is to it. He’s in his position by a combination of birth, dumb luck, and people thinking he sounds smart because he’s got a weird accent.
The idea that the rich’s ranks were ever or ever would be mostly full of smart or hard working people that “earned it” or “deserve it” is just a giant bunch of rich people propaganda that the masses devoured…bigly.
I used to be really active on Twitter. Everyone was there: my friends, people in my industry, people involved in my hobbies. When Musk bought it out everyone left. I tried to follow them to Bluesky and Mastodon but they mostly just quit posting. Between that and Reddit falling apart I don’t often use social media anymore.
Good. Come to mastodon.
Edit: wtf is bluesky?
Bluesky
Mastodon
Duck season.
Less filling.
No.
You mean boneless fediverse?
I’m actually glad to see what’s been happening to Twitter because as much as it was started with good intentions and used to be a positive force for tech, it was also fundamentally flawed social media model. The basic problem was that only positive reactions were allowed - like, retweet, follow. This is NOT the town square, where you can get any reaction. It’s more akin to a dictator’s rally, where you’re only allowed to clap and booing is not allowed. So it’s no surprise that over time, it led to filter bubbles and the spread of mass delusions. Because you could say the craziest or most depraved thing, and all you’d hear is applause.
The basic problem was that only positive reactions were allowed - like, retweet, follow
Idk if I would call retweeting positive reaction, especially when that retweet is ‘look at this fucking moron’.
Yeah I think if anything twitter is a lesson in how even if you try to give users only positive ways to interact they will find ways to use them to interact negatively. Whether that be quote retweeting or ratioing.
Or using a laugh react as a thumbs down.
A laugh react is more insidious than a thumbs down.
My point was that a laugh react is meant to be a positive interaction (what you said was funny, and I enjoyed your contribution) but has been co-opted as a negative reaction (I’m laughing at what a willfully ignorant idiot you are) because FB only wanted to provide users with positive ways to react. My concern wasn’t the level of negativity, only to provide the person to whom I was replying with a other example.
I think that was clear, my further comment was to highlight how far off (maybe), FB’s implementation intent has been from the way people are now using it.
Yes, in a joke or funny post the laugh emoji is used as intended. But in a more serious announcement it is the equivalent of mocking disgust, hence more emotionally devastating than a thumbs down.
Eg say someone posts a somber poem about their late father - a laughing emoji is saying “fuck you, I laugh at your pain or your shitty poem or the memory of your dad”.
The only question is, why, now that they’ve seen how it’s used don’t they let people disallow certain reactions. I’m assuming because emotional distress is more addictive…
What’s “ratioing”
When a piece of content that doesn’t allow downvotes, like a tweet, has lots more reposts than it does likes, the “ratio” is seen as proof the opinion was disagreed with, proportionally to the “ratio” itself.
I’ve seen it used to describe when a post has more comments than it has likes.
Makes sense thanks
Yup. That’s actually a problem when people dog pile on someone with a valid point.
Well said, I think that is the best explanation I have ever heard on the sites flaws.
X marks the Nazi
Weird. I’ve never seen Twitter more hostile to visitors and potential new users. And if you happen to register to a new account you will be welcomed by even more hostility from trolls and seasoned users. It’s just a terrible experience.
I noticed that as well. Every once in a while there will be a link to something interesting om Twitter, but you only get basically a screenshot. If you try and do any other viewing you immediately get pushed for sign in.
Elon was right when he said history will remember who killed Twitter, but we disagree on who
People acting as if twitter is something important. And killing it is meaningful. In Europe we don’t use it. Literally. I’m Polish, I never had a twitter account and don’t know anybody who has. The whole twitter/musk debacle is a war over nothing.
American here. Never used twitter. Never pay attention to it.
That’s what happens when you cater to Nazis
That you lose only 18% of your users?
I mean that’s millions of people, that’s not nothing
Tens of millions. I recall Twitter having around 400 million users before the buyout, so an 18% loss would be nearly 80 million.
And don’t forget that it might be offset by increased bot activity.
It’s probably about 40% of the non bot users.
For Twitter I’m apparently also a turbo user, as I get loading errors every day, after opening a few tabs quickly. Then it takes a while before I’m unblocked. Before Elon bought Twitter this never happened.
Can we get musk to buy russia?
Twitter is even more cringe than LinkedIn, which is saying something.
Eh I’ve been reading this headline forever.
Call me when it’s Myspace.
Of course engagement is down, nobody wants to post anymore when most replies are spambot nonsense and cheech and chong gummies ads. It is still the best place for breaking sports news and my feed is highly curated to only see what I want.
I need someone to tell me why Musk won’t be a huge buyer of DWAC when it opens. How much of Truth Social would he need to get it merged with Twitter, which would get Trump back on the platform. Musk gets to help out the psycho conservative right and he gets to help himself.
LOOOOOOL
