All these people are terminally attached to the people they are connected to on the platform. Moving over is easy. Convincing your friends to move along with you is hard. As a creator, convincing your whole follower base to move along with you is nearly impossible.
The vast majority of these users aren’t paying for subscription, and many advertisers have dropped it. Meanwhile it needs to pay additional debt and interest from the acquisition itself.
It is on its death bed already. All it takes is for the owner to realize it’s not worth taking losses over it anymore.
Not to mention, so I can stop seeing pictures of him, pressing his fingertips together in front of his face like he’s some fucking pensive genius. I’m goddamn tired of it
No offense but this is so goddamn stupid. We don’t live in a bubble and unfortunately their actions may have an impact as they ripple through the business and political world.
Intentionally censoring news because “lol get wrecked Jeff Bezos” is hurting no one but yourself.
From the article: "... is seeking to make X into a “super app” that features not only Twitter’s existing social networking and messaging features, but also payments and banking as well as video."
Stealing users data and accounts then using them for their own purposes seems like a great way to get people to trust you with their banking information.
They didn't really "steal" the account. The moved it to a different handle.
Edit: I don't care if they made it "worthless". It's the same exact account, same ID in the database and what not. Only thing that changed was the handle. Very different from "Stealing user data and account". If you hold onto an account name for something you don't really own then don't come at me with the Pikachu meme when the company that actually owns it takes it back. The whole point of the fediverse is to address that.
Yeah, it's like if you took "google.com" from Alphabet and replaced it with "google12345678998765.com"; they had a web URL and they still have a web URL so it's basically the same thing.
Shitty as this behavior may be: Why would there have to be any payment? It's just an account with a private company.
They can setup arbitrary rules or ban you without any rules. It's their service, their database... Just like a club can throw you out on a whim. You may tell your friends and eventually that club may go out of business because of their shitty behavior but that's about it.
This would have been a whole other story if it had happened with the x.com domain name...
That is exactly why. If you need to do something shitty, soften the blow. If you don't, you're an asshole. Making something hurt less means you have empathy. I'm honestly confused why you needed to ask. You're taking something of value from someone and providing nothing in return.
Edit: just because something is allowed (taking the account) doesn't mean it's "good" (in the moral sense). And just because something isn't required (offering compensation) doesn't mean it can't be used as a sign of good will or the lack of it can't be viewed negatively.
I am rarely a hipster, but I was definitely on the "Musk is an asshole" bandwagon waaaaaaaaaaay back in the days of grabbing credit for PayPal and founding Tesla. He's always been an asshole, but for the longest time his very loud fan club was willing to overlook the various indicators.
And just because something isn't required (offering compensation) doesn't mean it can't be used as a sign of good will or the lack of it can't be viewed negatively.
I agree. The headline could've said "@x user handle grabbed in an asshole move". Expecting payment for something like a Twitter handle is just weird to me.
Twitter handles have exchanged hands in the past for large sums. The precedent exists that handles have monetary value, especially single character ones. It's not much different than selling domain names.
They can setup arbitrary rules or ban you without any rules. It’s their service,
Indeed this shows the change in meaning that “service” has undergone in the past 10 or maybe 20 years. Before, the very notion of “service” was that this kind of events could not happen – otherwise it wasn’t a “service”. Reliability and reliance were integral part of the definition of “service”.
Well, back then you paid for service. Then it's a different story, there's an actual contract which is legally binding. Enshittified internet doesn't have those. Nor are users customers but we all know that here.
Musk took the handle as part of his monetization "strategy" to rebrand so with money involved payment for taking something from a user is a logical step.
Not taking it would be the most logical step, but exchange of money to compensate would be a close second.
Yes they have the right and ability to seize any account on their service for any reason. But if they want to be a stable platform where people build their brands and their businesses, there should be an expectation that this would not happen. Due process for when there is a dispute.
Clearly musk wants people to view the platform as such a place so this is a dumb move. In addition to being asshole
if they want to be a stable platform where people build their brands and their businesses
See, I don’t think that’s the goal anymore. I think the goal now is to repackage Xitter into something that looks new and different with all the right buzz words about AI. And then he desperately offloads as much of his position as possible on some other sap.
What if instead of taking over Twitter handle X, he had taken over Twitter handle of say NY Times. Not blocked it or suspended but straight up takeover. They’re part of that company’s brand. X May have not been important monetarily to that person but doing something like this without offering some sort of compensation signals to all other companies who use Twitter that their handle isn’t safe. This may be a unique instance because he wants the X Twitter handle for their rebranding, but it is an asshole move and undoubtedly others will be watching closely.
I agree. They are within their rights to do whatever with their database, their service. But if their decisions impact someone else’s business then they shouldn’t be surprised if someone takes legal action.
He has long list of terrible shit he’s done, but this is literally nothing lol
People acting like he stole someone’s property. He changed the username of some random squatter on his own personal website.
Which also there’s a huge underground communities who hack, trade, and sell these “rare” usernames. So no doubt it was owned by some squatter or someone who obtained it through malicious means.
So you’re saying rare usernames have a monetary value, but also that it’s perfectly fine for a website to steal these rare usernames because the man-child owner of the site has a weird obsession with a certain letter of the alphabet? And how do you know they obtained it via “malicious means” and not that they weren’t just an early adopter of twitter?
The fact that he’s treating twitter like his “personal website” is part of the problem.
It’s not stealing. He owns the website. It literally is his personal website. Tf are you guys smoking. Usernames are not property. The entitlement here is ridiculous and just objectively wrong.
Where is the part where that matters in the slightest. Still a username on a live service that is subject to change at any time, and there has never been an expectation of ownership.
Where is the part where that matters in the slightest.
You are proposing that, in justification of the dick move, this user is “no doubt” squatting or obtained the username maliciously when that isn’t the case based on the third paragraph of the article and other interviews with the original registrant of the handle. I don’t really think that’s a good faith discussion.
Regarding your second sentence, I don’t disagree but at I’m also not trying to make a point beyond my first reply of “sometimes you shouldn’t do things that you are able to do”.
I’m guessing he’s trying to spell something dirty again with his companies like he did with the Tesla models (S, 3, X, Y). Dude basically is a 13 year old boy if they were given billions of dollars.
Ford really should have released the electric Mustang as the Model E. Not only because Mustang was a bad brand to use for that but because Elon losing his shit about it would have been hysterical and free PR.
I don't understand how he expects to brand a letter. It'll do poorly in any kind of searching. Especially since it's a common letter to see on its own.
The part I’m really blown away by is that I just saw this final project in the intro to design class I teach from a group of international students earlier this spring. The project was to create a logo design and brand guidelines as a small team. The students can pick the business and whether it’s new or a rebrand, and this group went with social media all-in-one apps and made the justification that they are hugely popular in China, but nothing like that exists in the US. My favorite part is that the letter X was a HUGE part of the logo/branding, but they did not name it just “X” specifically for the reasons you listed - it’s not discoverable or unique in searches, the App Store, etc.
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