←back to thread

543 points donohoe | 9 comments | | HN request time: 1.037s | source | bottom
Show context
Hoasi ◴[] No.44511157[source]
X has been nothing short of an exercise in brand destruction. However, despite all the drama, it still stands, it still exists, and it remains relevant.
replies(23): >>44511323 #>>44511451 #>>44511453 #>>44511457 #>>44511712 #>>44512087 #>>44512184 #>>44512275 #>>44512704 #>>44513825 #>>44513960 #>>44514302 #>>44514688 #>>44516258 #>>44517308 #>>44517368 #>>44517871 #>>44517980 #>>44519236 #>>44519282 #>>44520336 #>>44520826 #>>44522391 #
mrweasel ◴[] No.44511712[source]
More and more I think Musk managed to his take over of Twitter pretty successfully. X still isn't as strong a brand as Twitter where, but it's doing okay. A lot of the users who X need to stay on the platform, journalists and politicians, are still there.

The only issue is that Musk vastly overpaid for Twitter, but if he plans to keep it and use it for his political ambitions, that might not matter. Also remember that while many agree that $44B was a bit much, most did still put Twitter at 10s of billions, not the $500M I think you could justify.

The firings, which was going to tank Twitter also turned out reasonably well. Turns out they didn't need all those people.

replies(14): >>44511868 #>>44512165 #>>44512334 #>>44512898 #>>44513148 #>>44513174 #>>44513350 #>>44514035 #>>44514544 #>>44514680 #>>44515018 #>>44516438 #>>44517692 #>>44518854 #
threetonesun ◴[] No.44511868[source]
Well sure if you give up on moderation, and close the platform to people who aren't signed in, and shut off the API then yes you didn't need the people supporting those parts of the platform.

And I guess if you consider "the place with the MechaHitler AI" as good branding there's no arguing with you that it's doing just as well as Twitter.

replies(2): >>44512101 #>>44512116 #
1. mrweasel ◴[] No.44512101[source]
I don't agree with the direction Musk has set for X, but businesswise it's not doing worse. Twitter was a financial catastrophe before the take over, so you didn't need much improvement. Moderation was a financial drain, the API didn't make them any money and none of the users seems to care all that much about the platform not being open to users without an account... because they all have accounts and wasn't able to interact with you anyway.

The media seems to get a good laugh out if Grok arguing the plight of white South Africans and is fondness to Hitler, but I'm not seeing journalists and politicians leaving X in droves because of it.

replies(5): >>44512258 #>>44512363 #>>44513205 #>>44513798 #>>44517300 #
2. amrocha ◴[] No.44512258[source]
Most of the local journalists, politicians, game devs, and open source maintainers i followed left. It’s just US national pundits, bots, and bait monetization accounts there at this point.
3. greenie_beans ◴[] No.44512363[source]
you must not know many journalists because they certainly left in droves
replies(1): >>44516537 #
4. archagon ◴[] No.44513205[source]
The job of journalists and politicians is to broadcast to as wide an audience as they can. It is not particularly surprising that many retain Twitter accounts for the marketing value.
replies(1): >>44514078 #
5. kevinventullo ◴[] No.44513798[source]
I don’t think we can say for sure whether it’s doing worse businesswise since the numbers aren’t public. But consider e.g. https://www.adweek.com/media/advertisers-returning-to-x/

“From January to September 2024, marketing intelligence platform MediaRadar found that (X’s former top advertisers including Comcast, IBM, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Lionsgate Entertainment) collectively spent less than $3.3 million on X. This is a 98% year-over-year drop from the $170 million spent during the same period in 2023.”

6. bikezen ◴[] No.44514078[source]
After NPR left twitter they saw a 1% drop in traffic from socials. It is not a useful platform.

Source: https://niemanreports.org/npr-twitter-musk/

7. Lu2025 ◴[] No.44516537[source]
Left where?
replies(1): >>44516810 #
8. greenie_beans ◴[] No.44516810{3}[source]
twitter
9. freejazz ◴[] No.44517300[source]
Well, the HitlerGrok thing happened yesterday...

I ask this genuinely and without any intent to cause offense: given your name, are you a bit?