this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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I liked Twitter. I know it's a cesspit, but as a software engineer it was always the top company I wanted to work at. It didn't work out (for several funny reasons), but for that selfish reason I'll never forgive Musk.
IMO, Musk needs help. If he were a normal person, someone would have pushed him to leave work and find help. As the owner of three companies, responsible for tens of thousands of employees, no chance is he getting that help. He's constantly baited and prodded by his fan boys, people like Rogan and Chappelle who can deal with that kind of fame, and the press that get content from his antics.
As for Twitter, I don't see it dying, until it fails to have a use for Musk. My initial belief was that his "everything app" would use Twitter's account system to get all of its users, and then he'd sell Twitter and continue with the users - but that app isn't ever happening. It's just something he's desperate to ditch, but his vanity and poor mental health won't let him do it. For that reason, it'll just be a zombie app.
If he were a normal person, he’d be drug addicted and homeless.
If he were a normal person, he would have learned the value of real work (out of necessity) and probably would be a much more grounded person.
I'll assume that by normal, we're referring to him not being wealthy. In that regard, I'd disagree. I think he's a real narcissist, and even if he didn't have all his wealth he'd still have similar issues, just on a much smaller scale. He wouldn't have the large audience he currently enjoys, nor all the attention he gets without his money.
In other words, without his money we would just view him as another kook espousing whatever idea he happens to find interesting that day.
I dont think an "everything app" will ever work.
You can make one thing that does one thing very well and better than the competition, and you will get users. Or you can do one thing that will try to do 10 things half assed, and it will fail to impress users. This happens because you have to divert your resources (time, money, people) for development, maintenance, new ideas, design etc. across all your "everythings". The more everythings you have, the less resources each one gets, however the costs for maintenance, bugfixes, updates etc. stay the same.
This happened to Yahoo in the early 2000s, where it tried to be Search, News portal, Email, Web directory, Weather, games and whathaveyou, however it failed because none of it's parts was better than the competition.
The better approach for an app would be to do it's own thing it is supposed to do, but support other apps that can enhance your product by allowing it to interact with outside data, and also give his data back out to other apps: use mailto:links/email instead of inventing your own messaging protocoll, support exporting to standard calendar files instead of implementing your own calendar that is oblivious to the schedule on the users phone. Support exporting datasets into common formats the user knows from his everyday tasks (excel, csv) so he can run his own data analysis on it, instead of baking some half-assed "analytics" module that only has 10% of the features the user needs.
Of course it works. See WeChat in China.
But I doubt it’ll be X that will make it work in the rest of the world.
WeChat is an anomaly and not proof of anything. It only works in China because the Chinese government controls who can and can’t operate, and thus can pick winners and losers.
If suddenly everyone with a better take on a service that a theoretical X “everything app” offered couldn’t operate without applying for a license and possibly never getting it or having to find a domestic partner to operate in every country they want to do business in, then yeah this X app would take off, because it would be essentially the only option.
Since that will never happen, then an everything app will never exist outside of countries that exercise end-to-end control. This is also why American tech companies outside of entrenched operating system vendors and hardware companies (think Apple & Microsoft) have a hard time making inroads there. Because if you get too popular and it’s something they can copy, then suddenly the Chinese copy gets all the market advantage and boatloads of funding, and you get shut out.
That is a good example, but as the other commenter pointed out I dont think you can compare weChat with Twitter. Twitter is a startup trying to make money from it's service. WeChat is a tool for the chinese goverment to track each persons chats, money transactions and purchases, and as such will pretty much receive all the funding it needs. Being profitable is not the main objective of WeChat.
The Chinese government can track any app in their country. Their laws just give them acces to the data if they want it (the same as the usa basically). They don't give a shit about WeChat.
They give a shit about banning competitors
Sure, but withg wechat you can link each user to the real person, bank account, phone number and find his friend circle on we chat. This might not work so well on other apps where any user can sign up via vpn and a random email address...
Of course WeChat dominates china when they ban other apps from even operating. WhatsApp can't operate there. Facebook is entirely banned in fact. Twitter is blocked as well.
Amazon failed to get a foothold due to complex regulations restricting them, which forces them to shut down their marketplace there.
So you can't really compare that to a much freer market.
I think it can definitely "work", in that there will be a small number of people that use it. It won't dominate any market, but it will exist, and it might even make some money. It's ultimately a power play, by having an app in every market (video, social, maps, etc) he becomes more entrenched in tech.
It's not an uncommon model, especially in smaller businesses that do a lot of things with a tiny bit of profit everywhere. With that being said, it requires competent leadership and an aligned team - and with Musk's visible problems that won't happen.
I think the idea (I don't say plan, because I think it's more of a seat-of-the-pants situation) was to first destroy Twitter as a platform for any kind of left wing activism.
Next, make it profitable as a subscription based right wing social media app.
The shit last week was just a rich, fragile narcissist lashing out at his perceived enemies.