this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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chapotraphouse

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Find the value of X. nerd

The number of monthly users of X dropped by 15% in the first year since Musk’s takeover amid concerns over a rise in hate speech on the platform.

It really is slowly dying.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'm still absolutely stunned that this fucking dickhead went and torpedoed one of the most valuable assets: the Twitter brand

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Let me give you some perspective here: imagine you just drove your company into the ground (Tesla) and was on the brink of going bankrupt, the Federal Government of the United States literally stepped in and not only saved your company, but also turned it one of the best performing company on the stock market, beating all other major automobile manufacturers who make real cars.

What do you think is the lesson you will learn here? You will think you are God. The world bends to your wants and needs. You can do no wrong. The most powerful government of the world will always have your back. Twitter is just a little trolling space for you, and you literally don’t care if it sinks. It’s one of those toys you get bored of eventually.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

just going to "x" out my thoughts on this

[–] [email protected] 43 points 10 months ago (1 children)

math class wants me to solve for X, and now the value of X changes?!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Solve for x, but it's a differential equation

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

d(y)/d(x.com) = - log(x.com)

[–] [email protected] 40 points 10 months ago

Anyone who unironically refers to twitter as x deserves an ass kicking

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

15%

sad, should've been more given that the site is completely unusable at this point, but I guess there isn't really an established replacement yet. Honestly the only thing keeping Twitter afloat at this point is just the lack of replacements for that type of social media since the site itself has been made completely unusable.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

What we're not seeing is granular data on their userbase, not that we ever will, but I'd venture a guess that it's much more damning than that 15% represents.

To illustrate my point, take my experience with the Reddit API changes. This was the absolute last straw for that shithole for me.

I still have an account on Reddit. I still dip into a couple of very niche subs to check on them and to provide info to people where I can, but almost exclusively through DMs. Sometimes articles redirect me to a Reddit source. Fairly commonly, search results for things like tech fixes direct me to Reddit.

I'm still a Reddit user (🤢🤮)
I would still be represented in their monthly user stats.
Even if I deleted my account, I would still visit Reddit at least once a month (this is even more applicable to how closely connected the news media and Twitter are.)

Do I comment on Reddit anymore? Nah.
Do I upvote or downvote things on Reddit? Very rarely.
Do I spend any significant amount of time browsing Reddit these days? Nope.
Have I switched from being an active contributor on Reddit, which is probably like 10% of their total active userbase, to being almost entirely passive? Yep.

Idk (because I don't care about Twitter beyond enjoying watching it implode and the anticipation of this potentially taking Elon with it) but I have a hunch that they've had a huge decline in their active contributors and especially those who made Twitter a valuable social media site (in the sense that you're always going to get trolls, bots, marketers and those really vapid chain response tweets as a form of low-value content but there's a certain amount of active contributors who create something of value which attracts other users - and those are the really important users. If that cohort of people shift from high-value contributions to passive consumption or occasionally dipping in only to answer DMs or because of a link redirecting them to Twitter then the site is moribund.)

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I've killed all my gimmick accounts and shit even. When I see a tweet I hate too much to ignore I just make a whole new account and start trying to rip off the face of everyone on there who annoyed me in the last 12 hours

I really hope I'm doing my part to drive away the last remaining profitable users.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

Our strongest soldier in the protracted people's war against Twitter equity

o7

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Yeah true, I’d probably technically be a Twitter user even though I never use the site. I do still have an account over there to look at something every now and then. I don’t interact with anyone though

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Masterdon is a thing. I don’t use it either, but it’s there alright.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

yeah Mastodon seems to be the best one. There's a fair amount of activity there it seems, but it still feels sort of niche, and doesn't seem to have caught on yet as the alternative. I'd use it, but I never really used twitter in the first place so I don't really have any need for Mastodon.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

of course it's niche. if it wasn't it would suck. the worst part about the "social media" model of internet culture is how it homogenizes and totalizes. the reason this site rocks so much is because it's comprised of a relatively small handful of mentally unstable commie freaks, with opportunities to interact with slightly different kinds of freaks. i do not want to post on a site where the hamburger helper mascot can insinuate itself into the conversation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I miss niche phpBB forums

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Right but a lot of people do, and still enjoy the Twitter model. Nothing has really caught on yet as a replacement. Mastodon was being floated for a while but hasn’t really caught on en masse.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Yogthos and many wildlife photographers are on there. What more could we ever need?

https://mas.to/@yogthos.rss

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I feel like that number is obfuscating that a lot of bots have flooded the platform. The number of actual users likely dropped far more.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago

hurry the fuck up god damn

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Should've given Twitter to Grimes.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Then it could have been renamed to "Ex"

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago

kelly

Death to America

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Sure, but that'd almost definitely be a trojan horse for Peter Thiel and his League of Impossible Ideologies (aka troll armies). Instead of obviously brainless bots and equally stupid Tech influencers, we'd have explicitly tailored social engineering ops. Think more "anarchist hacker catgirl" types who go viral just to stage a total breakdown and blow up your scene w insipid drama. Worst of all, they'd mostly be friends of Grimes. As if discourse wasn't already rigged enough.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

okay so what would the bad part be

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

The "anarchist hacker catgirls" are all clones of Keffals, and their favorite hobby is "being betrayed by the so-called left". Picture those kinds of rant at least twice a week, forever

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago

that's still worth a lot more than i thought

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (4 children)

like all these social media companies, the value was largely imaginary. i doubt its profits have dropped nearly as much.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I wouldn't be surprised either way. They've had a lot of major advertisers pull ads.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Have they? I have screenshots of YouTube, Sega and Nasdaq ads running next to white nationalist and transphobic content

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

I wouldn't say it's imaginary. The value of the platform was the people who used it as it effectively functioned as s clearinghouse for news. The fact that a moron like musk didn't realize the value was the people and that by adding nazis and conspiracy theories he was destroying its value shows how much of a dipshit he really is. He basically bought a punch bowl, shit in it, and now is mad that no one wants his shit punch.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

profits

They have never had a month of positive cashflow

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

they in shit ton of debt post acquisition though. yes the valuation is vibes based but still Twitter is objectively worse off than before.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

I'm proud of him on his path in becoming a millionaire

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

He is just going to change it back eventually to get everybody’s attention