Billionaires are tweeting each other in the open. Politicians. Reporters. CEOs, CFOs.
No other social network is like that. It's the only thing keeping Twitter relevant.
TikTok and Instagram have their celebrities and trend setters (which is where the ad dollars are), but you don't see anyone musing about "metaverse", "web3", and what their latest fund is going to pursue, geopolitics, OSINT, stocks, etc.
If I go onto "developer Twitter", there is a thriving ecosystem of thought leaders, developers attached to well-known project, etc. If I follow those people I feel like I am a part of a conversation between People Who Matter™.
But if I compare that to my own firsthand knowledge of those same projects and what's happening in the ecosystem, I realise that there is very little overlap between reality and Twitter's projection of reality.
In the end Twitter is just the illusion of people talking to each other. It's all just to further their brand or to push their goals, not insight they give up for free. Sometimes someone slips up but this just results in even more carefully crafted tweets.
twitter won; no doubt - but there is no stick or way to money-tise that doesnt not turn into a facebook slow drain gurrgler on your userbase.
this is the conundreum of social enagement based apps. Your a fad, and your only another fad away from history!
GREAT long term investment? NAahhhhh. Traditional PUMP n DUMP stock. Billionaires get made, mom and pops get DESTROYED! Celebs will go wherever the endorsement money is. Life will continue. These apps wont.
If you mean Twitter specifically I'd be interested in reading your thoughts on the "bull case" for this takeover. I like Twitter and use it to shout into the void from time to time. I wonder if it's just like.. a company and not a growth company? Like what if we just had Twitter with some monetization and then it just paid out dividends to shareholders? Why is that such a bad thing?
Sure they could start slapping ads on everything, even paywall the site but at the end of the day there'd be significant competition eroding profits.
Twitter almost makes more sense as an open protocol than a commercial service, which is basically what Mastodon is. It's even what Dorsey wanted to do at one point with Bluesky, not sure if that's still alive.
