It may have escaped some people's notice that twitter is now under new ownership. The world's allegedly richest man is now $44 billion less wealthy and is now the proud owner of the world's biggest cat image sharing site
For even to a man of such wealth such as Elon, $44 billion is not to be found down the back of the sofa, so as well as personal investment, he has also taken out a large loan and brought in some trusted partners, such as that great protector of free speech, the Saudi government (Slogan - free to say anything as long as you can do it decapitated).
It is often said in the church of Musk (which sounds like a dodgy perfume name), that we are just not capable of understanding his genius. That he moves in mysterious way, and mere mortals just don't great get his great plan.
For example, mortals when trying to decide whether to send 44 big ones would take months of careful negotiation. Not the anointed one. He toyed with the company, deviously forcing the price from 23 billion to 44 billion. Genius.
Of course, once you have bought your prize, lesser people, would have a brief honeymoon, get their feet under the table, work out a strategy, build bridges to the workforce. Not this deity. Pretty well, as soon as he took over, he took revenge over those who he felt had doubted him. I mean, what is god like powers if you cannot do a bit of smiting now and again. Then he announced charges to the blue tick system, to ensure only the true believers who have tithed sufficiently would be allowed the mark of Musk. Then he set about gutting the company, laying waste huge swathes of the work force, much like a biblical plague.
The idea seems to be that those who are left, would be under the tutelage of disciples from his previous company and so grateful for being spared, that they will be happy to accept any conditions imposed in order for the new temple to be built.
As a software developer myself, the bit I really enjoyed was him bringing in people from Tesla to look over the Twitter code base. That is a bit like me reviewing the Kalevala in its original Finnish. All software is not created equal, and the idea that someone could just be bought in and review some code totally outside their domain experience is both laughable and sad, and i really feel for the Twitter engineers who have to explain why it was written in Scala and not C++.
It is also a dick move. Nothing endears you to a new boss than on his first day, him saying that up to know all the work you had done is useless.
To add to that there are rumours that the decision on who to let go was based on lines of code created, and in future they would use a system of stack ranking to measure performance. If you do not know that particular hell, it is a system where the lowest 10% employees are let go every month in an attempt to encourage greater efforts. Stack ranking has been blamed for the demise of GE (who invented it) and Microsoft's past failings, as it causes teams and individuals to stab each other in the back. It is almost like Elon has read a book on the world's worst software management practices, but thought it was an instruction manual.
In a way I feel worse for those who are left. I have worked in toxic work cultures, and it is not one I would inflict on anyone. Nor is it sustainable. Maybe such things work at startups, because the carrot of future IPO's are dangled in front of you to justify unsocial hours, toxic work culture etc. However, twitter is not that, and I cannot see the present team living under the new environment, and if I was still there I would be working out my escape route as soon as possible. Of course, that could be the big plan. Force out the high earners and replace them with interns who are both cheaper and more malleable. Still a big dick move
Of course, Elon would claim that this just a big part of his ephemeral master plan. Burn me as a heretic, but I have some doubts...
First problem is that Elon's track record is as a disruptor (Insert Star Trek Joke...Ed). His successful businesses in the past have been where he has gone against the status quo. You cannot argue that he has been highly successful in this rewriting the rules on electric vehicles and spaceflight through his force of personality. However, Twitter is not like that. It is established part of people's lives. I don't think users want disruption or change, what they want is slightly better service. It is like an old pair of trousers. Not great, but comfortable. Maybe Musk has some kind of master plan where he wants to take it (Maybe a bot that tweets for you :) ) ,but at present it feels like a rich man's toy which he was forced to buy after a late night spliff, and is now trying to make the best of it, without admitting his stupidity.
Secondly, the problem is that Twitter is not an engineering company. There is no product, and minimal actual physical infrastructure. So what do you get for $44 bill these days? Well you get a brand, known around the world, platform used by millions and a workforce with the IP capital on how to best run it, well (used to have anyway)
However, unlike rocket sheds and car factories, brands are ephemeral things. One of the mysteries of the internet-verse is why such companies are valued so highly. We have seen in the past with MySpace and Tumblr, that a brand can quickly be destroyed by alienating users. As a Twitter user, I owe the platform nothing. Yes, I have 13 years of tweets, and a few followers, but they have little value to me or my descendents. They were just a some brain farts I had that day.
This is the problem Elon will have monetizing the platform. As soon as you become a paying customer, your relationship fundamentally changes and to be honest, of all the social media I partake in, Twitter is the one I care least about. And that's the rub. Twitter needs us more than we need it, because its whole business model is based on attracting advertisers to partake. If the platform is deemed as tarnished, people may give up, meaning less advertising dollars. It then starts to go into a death spiral. Getting a few desperate Elonites to pay $8 for their blue tick is not going to fill that hole.
The other problem that the cost and effort to grow a rival is quite small. All you need is investment, a few server farms and a workforce with expertise in running it. Strangely enough, Elon has provided the fuel for all these and as nature abhors a vacuum, business will always will fill an opportunity.
I do hope Elon made sure that all those employees and executives he cast off (in contravention of Californian employment law) sign a non-compete clauses, otherwise I would not be surprised to see a rival platform come along. Of course, the irony is that starting from scratch is often easier than maintaining an old system since you can incorporate all those lessons learned.(and I have copyrighted MuskRat as the new name, but I am willing to sell it for a small fee)
Finally, we have the free speech problem.
Many people congratulating Elon on his take-over seem to be the far right who are tired of group think on Parler and are relishing expressing their extremist views to an audience who have cruelly shielded from racist, climate change denying, anti-woke agenda by the Twitter illuminati.
Problem is, not only that most people just don't to want to wade through that crap, the self-styled chief twait is now the focal point of these views. Whether he believes in them or not, he is now responsible for letting them in. His big plan is a star chamber of opposing views that will adjudicate such decisions. I can think of only one person in the world who thinks in this fractured world that would ever work, however as a suggestion as to monetize Twitter he could try selling Netflix, the live-streaming rights of the debate chamber, with added mud and jello. It could be a rating winner.
Libertarian free speech as praticed by Musk is not what most people consider acceptable bgehaviour. It is a less polite debate and more of two Rottweilers going for it until one rips off the testicles of the other. That is what free speech without moderation is, and to be honest is really exhausting to the point where you really just want it to go away. It maybe a coincidence, but I've seen a lot more of this on my timeline recently, and the temptation to just walk away has never been stronger.
Of course, one argument is that you should stay and add balance. This reminds me of a comedian who was invited on I'm a celebrity. At first, they thought their presence would allow them rise above the other shit eaters there, but they realised that just by being there, they also would be just another shit eater, however high-minded their ambitions were. The question therefore is really how much shit we are prepared to accept, before we say enough is enough.
Should I stay or should I go now? Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go, there will be trouble And if I stay it will be double So come on and let me know
The Clash
So what is my future with Twitter. Should I stay, and if I do where?
When I think of social media, it reminds me of gods as designed by Pratchett and Gaiman. In their worlds, gods do not come first, but are emergent properties of the beleivers. The more people believe, the stronger they become, and therefore more people believe, becoming a continual feedback loop. However, then eventually they go out of fashion, and they disappear, no longer maintained by the faith.
Twitter is very much like that, and the question is whether I want to keep feeding this god, or should I switch to others. Of course the problem is which one?
At present Mastodon seems to be the obvious alternative, but as with most open source systems it is neither as easy to use as Twitter and also a bit rough around the edge. It is also fragmented with different servers representing different constituencies.
This has both plus and minuses.
One of the biggest issue about Twitter is the timeline gets conflated. I follow someone because I like their photos and next minute I am subjected to their far right views because they follow Farage or another low life. At the moment Mastodon does not suffer this but it is early days. It is however more effort since I have to join multiple servers, but I must admit I am starting to like it.
Will it be as big a twitter? I don't know but it is always worth reminding people that you are not chained to site and there are alternatives
Of course I would miss some of the people I follow on Twitter if I move, but I must remind myself Twitter friendships are no more real than Elon's empathy for human beings
As a final word I know Elon is a big fan of Asimov (though strangely has failed to understand the man's warning on AI). However I would suggest a little Pratchett may teach him more more about living with humanity.
For some reason thsi quote came to mind
There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment on the nature of sin. for example." [answered Mightily Oats.]
