You’re telling me the company that once had ads for T-Mobile and Volkswagen and now almost exclusively has ads where random bots with NFT photos advertise ChatGPT ‘services’ isn’t doing well financially??
It’s important to note that “doing well financially” isn’t just revenue and user count, it’s also expenditures. If Twitter has managed to cut costs by more than whatever its income has dropped by then that could well be a good outcome for it, I’ve heard it wasn’t profitable when Musk took it over.
It’s kind of ironic how big companies are frequently criticized for fixating on “endless growth” and “line goes up”, and then when a company or organization sheds that it also looks bad.
There’s so much wrong with your understanding here…so I’ll just point out that you’re talking about Twitter as if it’s still a public company, it’s not.
Also, Twitter was never profitable, and it was likely never going to be profitable. But there’s a big difference between their losses and projections before Musk, and after.
But there’s a big difference between their losses and projections before Musk, and after.
Which are?
If “lines goes up” meant things get better for the customers, the employees, and the world in general, then people would be cheering it on. Usually it means it gets worse for at LEAST one of the three, and sometimes all 3.
Here, “line goes down” is following Twitter getting worse for the customers, the users, the employees, and the world in general. So people will cheer as it crashes.
I thought Twitter’s infrastructure was going to collapse within weeks after Musk made all those cuts and changes. I was obviously wrong because Twitter’s infrastructure didn’t collapse. I’m not speaking to the user experience on Twitter but from a purely infrastructure perspective, Musk was right and I was wrong.
Uh-oh, you said something positive about Musk. I only said “maybe he’s not as bad as it seems” and look where that got me.
Lol exactly, how dare you have a nuanced opinion!
How much did human usage drop? Because there are a shitload more bots on twitter nowadays than there were in the years before he took over.
This should be human usage - the user survey was done by phone.
Ah, ok, 27% -> 19%, an 8% YoY drop, and the numbers were obtained using identical methodologies across multiple years. Yeah, I agree, seems to check out.
Still, there are definitely a shitload more bots than there were before.
Are there more bots or does it just seem that way because there are fewer people? I don’t ask to be snarky, I’m legitimately curious what the numbers were and are.
Any time something gets too big it gets bots. Lemmy will be the same. We will see instances getting defederated who cannot manage the spam.
Fuck Elon though
If people set up their own instances with 100% LLM bots how would we even know they are bots to defederate? The AIs are too realistic. Only giveaway would be the ones dumb enough to make accounts post/comment 24/7 with seconds between each comment.
I imagine the content would be bad, which is the whole reason an instance would become defederated.
Right now, it’s still possible to realize texts are written by llms, due to style and mistakes, but it can become a serious problem in the near future, and we are kind of ignoring it, because no one is preparing in any way.
It will take someone really smart to figure this out without requiring some form of identity confirmation (which would be horrible imo), like using credit cards or (even worse) government digital IDs (I live in a country where we have a gov ID app which can be used to sign documents and confirm ID online but if I had to use it on Lemmy or any other social media I’d just fuck off).
Any time something gets too big it gets bots
Dead internet theory, summed up in a sentence
I suspect even more than 30%, and by a lot. Nearly all of the communities that once thrived seem to be dead. It feels very empty.
Wasn’t like one of his focuses going to be getting rid of bots? Did they just not do anything and the bots just invaded or did the bots just get better?
He got rid of like 80% of the staff. I doubt he has a functional team who can even tackle the problem.
I think the focus on bots was primarily used in an attempt to back out of the deal. It was never an issue, especially if it inflated his ego by pumping up his account.
What the fuck is the other 70%'s problem?
They’re bots
Or right-wing fascists
Or both
And definitely porn addicts
yeah. no that’s whistleblowers. you ever notice how every major whistleblower gets hit with a child porn charge? It’s like a label that reads “the government doesn’t think you should talk about this guy”. Nothing more than character assassination by our government. Ridiculous to suggest that someone used to being that furtive about something so shameful would also just want the world to know the truth.
those two things don’t fit together, and yet it keeps happening. weird
Or people with morbid curiousity like me who hop on to see the dumpster fire occasionally. Can’t say I recommend it.
Damn, I thought it was a requirement to shit post on Twitter while you’re shitty code compiles. How am I supposed to become a real programmer now? I guess I still got mastodon.
He kept the 70% he wanted, it’ll be a propaganda engine and communications platform for the right wing.
Whatever wing willing to pay, honestly.
EDIT: I rarely see the voting system of lemmy for a reason. I find it cute, this reaction to the mere comparison between so-called “wings” in the American political system. Both, republicans and democrats, are two sides of the same coin.
I have a lot of friends that won’t quit because of sports updates and all the shitposts
This is in addition to the first year of losses, which are likely higher.
Sunken cost fallacy
I’ll bet it’s more than 30% left but bots backfilled the space.
There are a lot of quasi-celebrity types with a big following that don’t want to give up their follower base.
Ever since Musk’s control of the company, Twitter (I refused to call it X) showed me multiple hate and racists posts. Basically, Twitter is showing me garbage. I now use Mastadon instead.
I was never active in terms of posting but I followed several news outlets, local government agencies, and a few friends. Shortly after Musk took over I saw nothing but right wing nutjobs and a lot of posts from Musk. I tried unfollowing but nothing worked ao I quit logging in. I need to cancel my account but haven’t taken the time.
Yeah, I had a Twitter account but rarely used it. Shortly after Musk took over, his account was in recommendations and his tweets were in my feed, even though I’d NEVER seen them before.
I blocked him.
He remained at the top of my recommendations.
I think I even occasionally saw his posts when they were retweeted or something by someone I didn’t even follow, because the retweet was trending, I guess?
That’s when I deleted my account.
Facebook does that for me too, alongside flat earthers, anti EV crap and the occasional funny picture. It’s depressing.
Oh yeah, the flat earthers, the pictures with lens flare on it being proof of “planet X” and other insanity? The best comedy I’ve ever seen.
Mastodon has been great.
Are there enough using it?
Yes!
I’m back to calling it Twitter. (Not that I’m ever on it though.)
It’s such a stupid name! Everytime it’s mentioned, it has to be prepend or suffixed with something so people actually understand the “X” context.
And more importantly - If you visit x.com, it redirects to twitter.com! So what’s the fucking point of the rebrand?
Genius, i say! The man’s an absolute genius!
Obviously. Some people say trump should run a social media platform. More and more.
Until he stops allowing deadnaming on his site, I’m going to deadname his site.
It’s only fair.
Xwitter (zwitter)
Xchan
Szechuan
I haven’t stopped calling it twatter
What do people call a tweet in the X rebranding?
Xcrement
I’ve seen “xeet” from people outside of Twitter. Not sure what an X person would say. It’s pronounced “shit” or “sheet”.
deleted by creator
I call it the x social media site
How could the jews do this to me :(
-Musk
That sounds like bragging. Why aren’t more people stopping this crap?
Who the fuck is still on that shitpile? Dudes. Stahp.
porn?
What the fuck’s “x”?
He sure has a lot of X’s
who cares
I would find it more plausible that only 30% remains.
Concerning
Good
The 2022 and 2023 usage data was gathered through a national telephone survey of about 1,500 people aged 12 and older—further details and methodology for the 2024 usage data will be released on March 28, according to Edison.
What an interesting choice for collection method when you’re assessing a social media website in 2024.
The whole Musk takeover is much less relevant (in the sense of interesting) for people outside the western context. I asked a few friends in Japan why they still use Twitter, but they just don’t care about the platform and ownership as long as they can still interact with their friends there. Curious how the botification will affect that over time, though.
