Are you planning to remain a member and see what comes of Twitter or will you abandon ship in light of recent developments?
An Institution With History
Undeniably, Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. It’s the site that birthed the now ubiquitous hashtag. In 2006, a year before the iPhone, it began as a way to send short text messages to anyone. Twitter quickly caught on among a few thousand registered users.
In time, hundreds of thousands of active users devised clever ways of sharing terse expressions in 140 characters or less. Eventually, the platform began supporting rich media like photos an videos. Then it doubled the maximum character count to 280 characters.
How does a free platform pay thousands of employees or make a profit? Becoming a publicly traded company on the stock market provided cash infusion for an otherwise unprofitable company. In time, paid advertising became the only revenue. Then the largely ignored Twitter Blue rolled out, giving paying subscribers more editing features.
Users can have dozens, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of followers. This attracts entertainers and politicians alike. But people are fickle about social media. When a new platform comes out, people flock to that. There have been many since Twitter’s inception.
An Institution in Trouble
Now Twitter is a privately held corporation. In what is the highest price paid for a company, Elon Musk owns it. Saying that the transition has been tumultuous is no understatement. Many users and former employees feel it is in a death spiral.
Prominent members with hundreds of thousands of followers have disconnected from Twitter. Perhaps you are considering the option as well. Motivations stem from verification procedures to censorship, or even who the company allows on the platform.
Musk is a temperamental genius who appears to be throwing ideas against the wall in real time to see if they stick. Outrage and dissent follows each plan. He even berates top advertisers for pulling their ads.
Do you think the platform will ever become profitable? Maybe Musk will lose so much money that he sells it for pennies on the dollar to a less volatile overseer.
It’s just a hunch, but I feel Twitter will continue existing in a marginalized fashion. Active members may dwindle until it’s as significant as AOL or MySpace. Are you jumping ship or will you hang on and see what happens?
References
- The Real History of Twitter. businessinsider.com/how-twitter-was-founded-2011-4
- Elon Musk Claims Apple Has 'Mostly Stopped' Offering Ads on Twitter and Is Making Moderation Demands. macrumors.com/2022/11/28/elon-musk-apple-stopped-twitter-ads/
