386
US ad revenue at Musk's X declined each month since takeover -data
(www.reuters.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
386 points (91.2% liked)
Technology
59148 readers
2261 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Are we at the point that we can admit ElMo is doing this on purpose to shut down free speech that stands in opposition to wealthy authoritarian regimes?
https://gizmodo.com/twitter-saudi-arabia-x-jack-dorsey-areej-al-sadhan-abdu-1850805085
I'm not going to pretend I have absolute proof, nor that I am an expert on the subject matter. I do believe it stands to reason that he isn't an idiot (nor as intelligent as he portrays himself for that matter) - not enough of an idiot to actively degrade a prominent social media platform to the tune of tens of billions of dollars without a goal in mind.
He's still an idiot, in my opinion. Money isn't worth a damn if there aren't peasants. He might have to wipe his own ass at this rate.
I hope he becomes irrelevant. I'll do my part moving forward.
This "he isn't an idiot" or "not enough of an idiot" is the wrong way to think about things. Smart people believe all sorts of dumb things, and plenty of smart people can delude themselves, especially when they surround themselves with "yes men".
The other thing is X isn't the only social media platform, nor was ever a particularly large one as users go. Getting rid of Twitter just pushes people to threads, mastodon, bluesky and others. It doesn't actually shut down much speech at all.
I think the non-conspiracy thinking is just - Musk was addicted to twitter, liked saying edgy and engaging stuff and because of what was more of a boast but legally was a binding sort of offer to buy ended up forced to buy Twitter. The legal forces were well documented at the time. Now that Musk has Twitter, he decided to make it into what he always professed it should be, along with his egomania has made it more and more like any number of "free speech absolutest" spin offs that turned into right wing cesspools that regular people find less and less appealing, and advertisers really find concerning.
People who think there's some huge conspiracy everywhere have never worked for a narcissist executive. It feels like an extension of "they're rich and powerful means they have to be cunning", no they clearly get caught up in their own delusions of aptitude.
Think of all the group projects you've ever worked on and multiply that by huge egos. I find it hard to believe that any of these people can coordinate with the level of precision most conspiracy theories claim. Do they happen? Definitely. Is it as commonplace as they think? Definitely not.
Americans have an innate cultural belief that if someone has money, they are therefore smart. It doesn't matter how the person got their money - whether they inherited at birth, or they stole it, or they had a relative who won the lottery. In the US, we will defer decisions to others who we perceive to have wealth because it is a cultural belief.
This is, of course, obviously wrong. A person who is born into wealth as an infant has no influence on their own success any more than any other infant.
There is also a culture where those who are born into wealth also believe they are smarter than everyone else, and the lack of accountability in their lives often leads to wildly incorrect business ventures, doubling down on narcissistic behavior, and a complete disconnect with how 99% of the human population thinks and lives.
Elon Musk has lost $40 billion dollars worth of value in just over a year on one business venture. He won't be able to make Twitter work, because he doesn't have any better ideas than anyone else who ran Twitter. He's also quickly proving that his ideas are far worse. There's no grand plan. There's no conspiracy. He's just a lazy rich kid who smokes weed all day and thinks he's a genius.