Twitter's most valuable users are ghosting the platform
- Reference: 1666794915
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/10/26/twitter_losing_valuable_users/
- Source link:
Earlier this week, Musk said he would complete the buyout by Friday, October 28, a court-ordered deadline, during a video conference call with bankers helping to finance the $44 billion deal, [1]according to Bloomberg .
Wall Street lenders are said to be finalizing $13 billion of debt financing, with the largest chunk coming from Morgan Stanley, which is still doing due diligence before sending Musk the cash. Twitter stock traded as high as $53.18 at the news – not quite Musk's $54.20-a-share price.
[2]
The transaction puts the banks in a shaky position, even if they are primed to handle the shock. Under normal conditions, they would pass debt commitments to money managers through junk bonds and leveraged loans ahead of a deal's closure, but with days left and poor global credit conditions, the banks face losses of around $500 million.
[3]
[4]
Musk promised on the call to help market the debt, and his [5]original commitment letter said his team would assist for up to 30 days after the deal's closure, with Musk participating in any investor meetings for up to two hours.
Where did the tweeters go?
It's not a great time for anyone, let alone the world's richest man, to be borrowing vast amounts of money amid soaring interest rates, inflation, recession fears, and multiple geopolitical crises. Yet documents from inside Twitter itself may only serve to stoke that sense of buyer's regret in Musk's camp.
[6]Elon Musk reportedly wants to gut Twitter workforce by 75%
[7]Musk grumbles about 'overpaying' for Twitter but says he's excited
[8]Er, Musk's trial hasn't stopped, no matter what he told Twitter, says judge
[9]Elon Musk tells Twitter: My takeover deal is back on
Internal research [10]seen by Reuters says that "heavy tweeters" – defined as someone who logs in to Twitter six or seven days a week and tweets about three to four times a week – have been in "absolute decline" since the start of the pandemic.
This matters because, although these whales account for "less than 10 percent" of monthly overall users, they generate "90 percent of all tweets and half of global revenue." For context, the document is titled "Where did the Tweeters Go?"
The study also highlighted a shift in interests among the website's English-speaking heavy users from news, sports, and entertainment to cryptocurrency and NSFW content – stuff advertisers do not usually wish to associate with their brands.
[11]
A Twitter spokesperson said of the findings: "We regularly conduct research on a wide variety of trends, which evolve based on what's happening in the world. Our overall audience has continued to grow, reaching 238 million mDAU [monetizable daily active users] in Q2 2022."
Ironically, [12]back in April , Musk himself pointed out that the majority of Twitter's most followed accounts "tweet rarely and post very little content. Is Twitter dying?" he asked.
Five days later, he offered to buy the business. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-25/musk-tells-debt-bankers-he-plans-to-close-twitter-deal-on-friday?srnd=technology-vp
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y1lZlnD09XyKltQMEN@NqgAAAIk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y1lZlnD09XyKltQMEN@NqgAAAIk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y1lZlnD09XyKltQMEN@NqgAAAIk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465922049844/tm2213189d8_ex99-h.htm
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/21/musk_twitter_layoffs/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/20/musk_overpaying_twitter/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/05/musktwitter_twitter_trial/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/04/twitter_shares_frozen_on_musk/
[10] https://archive.ph/5FG2P
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y1lZlnD09XyKltQMEN@NqgAAAIk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512785529712123906
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Me too. I am actually finding Reddit to be a better way to follow my favorite issues. The narrowly focused sub-reddits are better filters than what Twitter offers. And Twitter's "algorithm" keeps pushing stuff at me I have no interest in just because it might maybe be somehow related to something I read once.
Reddit must surely be the most badly designed website to ever exist. (I'm talking about the user interface, not the technical side)
It's basically just a web forum, but OMG, do they earn money for every mouse-click? "View discussion", "Expand this thread", "see more", and when you expand the thread you have to go back to the previous page to see other posts.
Bleugh.
"...do they earn money for every mouse-click?"
Yes they do. If you don't click, it's not worth monetizing. Reddit heavily tracks human behavior to associate your behavior to a product, it's the worse "site" at doing this.
It’s toxic and it got nasty during the pandemic
Speaking from personal experience, and I was a very heavy Twitter user at one stage, the platform has just become rather unpleasant, vicious and toxic.
It was a nice space in the early days, entertaining banter and even the concept of meeting people at Tweetups was fairly nice and friendly, but it’s really fallen into being an utter cesspit since then.
The pandemic and the rise of populist politics & conspiracy theorists, people ranting about various topics, pile ons and all of that just made it an obnoxious place to interact.
I still have a very nice bubble of people, most of whom are from the early days of Twitter and are still fun to interact with, but step outside that or put a foot wrong and you’re into political extremists, people ranting and raving, bots, vicious and malicious posting and so on.
It’s at a stage where I don’t find a flick though Twitter fun and I find posting on it is like sticking your toe into a tank of cartoon piranhas.
Just as an example, I said something critical of Liz Truss’ economic policies and all of a sudden was getting racist abuse from a Brexiteer!!? I wasn’t even intending to interact with them and my comment was really mild.
All of that has just caused me to stop posting as much and more blandly.
Also I’ve friends who work in minor journalism / media or other public facing roles that mean they need to keep a Twitter profile, and the abuse they get sometimes is just sickening. I don’t see the point.
Even in a work context, you can see accounts from really non controversial companies post something dull and it gets nothing but abuse. The likes of public health agencies and local authorities are often getting pile ons of conspiracy theorists, anti vaxxers etc and they’re often very far away but you’d wonder why these bodies and agencies even bother to post anymore.
Quite honestly, I think Twitter is over. It’s being ghosted because it’s no longer a nice platform to interact with. Simple as that!
Meanwhile, Facebook is tumble weed at this stage too.
I’d delete my account if it didn’t contain a few obscure friends and family members who I’d entirely lose touch with if I do and I have long since deleted Meta apps from my phone.
Re: It’s toxic and it got nasty during the pandemic
I feel the same way, and I've changed my password to something that I've since forgotten, to give me enough friction to stay off (for a while at least).
I'm not sure what you mean about "conspiracy", as it seems a lot of what was called conspiracy in 2020 has turned out to be true. Things like the lab leak theory as now considered plausible, which would make them an actual conspiracy if true. A whole bunch of people who simply wanted kids to stay in school, because they felt the cons outweighed the pros, have been deplatformed / re-platformed at various points.
You talk about anti-vaxxers, and I assume you are referring to Covid (even though it's not technically a vaccine). Something that is never going to give herd immunity, because it doesn't stop the spread. And it seems that any benefit seems to wear off to zero after about 5 months. Having had two doses, it does feel like I've been mis-sold, and I won't be risking any more (of this particular therapy), although I'll still take others as required if they give a benefit. Does that make me one of the "anti-vaxxers" that you are referring to, or are you talking about the magnets / 5G lot?
Going back to the lab leak, it's really important to find out if that's what happened, as they are up to it again doing gain-of-function research on Omicron to make it more deadly (WHY!?). Although Boston Uni say that's not gain-of-function, I'm not sure how they figure that one!?
Re: It’s toxic and it got nasty during the pandemic
So you’re saying you’re “just asking questions”?
I wonder if Musk is buying it out to shut it down. One of the most toxic plagues ever to be set loose on humanity.
I for one would be glad to see the back of it.
The experiment has been done, the results are in. As a civilisation, we are not mature enough for such a thing to exist.
I deleted my account a few months ago. What finally made me ditch my account is when they introduced topics and bulk subscribed me to hundreds of them completely flooding my feed. You had to remove each one at a time.
There are still a few people I like to follow. Twitter must have realized a bunch of people were doing this because after you scroll past a few posts on the web the UI get locked and you are prompted to log in.
I have a Twatter account. I use it to follow people/services to keep up to date with topics, but I never post anything myself. For those old enough to remember, I'm almost treating Twatter as an NNTP feed.