I will be standing back, with a bowl of popcorn, watching the fun.

May the two of them kill each other. And then may the survivor die,

As I said when they proposed that (PR-stunt) cage fight between the two of them, they needed to set it up like Thunderdome, except with one fewer men allowed to leave.

Twitter is now basically crippled unless you are signed in.

There are two obvious ways around that:

1) Have a read-only sleeper account. Never post anything, don't actively participate with the platform, only use it to follow important events

2) Don't use Twitter at all.

Both options will displease Elon. He's already taking aim at Option 1 by having a daily limit on how much you can see.

It seems that Threads has been created to destroy Twitter, because it's the one big platform where you can say things that US and other Western governments don't like. Hence the continuous flow of stories about Threads sign ups, and nothing mentioned about how most are trying it a couple of times and then dropping all usage. If you want a platform like Facebook where true accounts of vaccine damage are taken down as misinformation, or when any Net Zero scepticism is silenced then stick with threads. Likewise with lockdown scepticism, or anti mask mandates, etc. etc. Basically more and more government control.

If you believe the Big Pharma companies have our best interests at heart, and would not do anything just to make more and more money (as they are run by literal psychopaths), then Threads is your home.

If you want to see some alternative views (some of which are a little wacky to say the least) then stick with Twitter. It's more radical / open / sceptical / questioning & sometimes downright conspiratorial. (oh, and occasionally right)

> oh, and occasionally right

Like a stopped clock twice a day then?

I wouldn't worry about censorship on Threads.

Since it is mostly text based - I have no real idea how it actually looks, but as a surrogate of Twatters 280 characters or less, I assume text - there is no danger of Meta censoring any nipples; unless you discuss lubrication schedules ...

Seems someone skipped their dried frog pills this morning.

Or woke up after having one to many over the weekend.

Wow Paul I think you addressed every point that I made. A skilful take-down. I might as well call it a day with the internets today, as I can't compete with your superior intellect.

Elon, better get back to ‘running’ your companies, you overpaid chode

SpaceX has been going great without him while competitors are moving backwards. Starlink is cash flow positive, launched the last of the V1 satellites (lots more V1.5 to go). Tesla's Texas factory built their first cyber truck.

I am very happy that Musk is busy with his AI startup and Twitter. The only way Twitter makes its next its next interest payment is if Musk sells more of his Tesla shares again. It would take far more than that to take control of Tesla away from him but I can dream.

Telegram is pretty much entirely uncensored and seems to work fine.

Ads on Twitter that I've seen recently vary widely (browser on PC). Lots that I see are crypto or junk dropshippers. A few are main stream companies I recognize. Some look like individuals just trying to promote their twitter account. I don't think I've seen ads on Reddit or Youtube say "Hi, I'm Bob, follow me!". This implies that Twitter ads can be very cheap.

What is also unique to Twitter is that I can hit "block @xxxxx" on every ad. If this feature actually works, I have no idea why Elon would keep it in "Twitter 2.0". Imagine if this was on TV, "Fuck Ford, I never want to see a Ford ad again!".

I doubt Elon cares who, if anyone, advertising goes to. His only concern is whether he gets paid by his advertisers.

In fact, it sort of looks like ads that go to no one at all might be quite profitable.

"The cost of promoting a tweet is between $0.50 to $2.00 for every first action. On average it falls around $1.35 every time a Twitter user clicks, replies, or retweets your content. This makes Promoted Tweets a perfect match for brands that want to capitalize on high-performing tweets."

AdsTargets https://adstargets.com › Home › Online Advertising

Of course, I haven't a clue how Twitter or Twitter advertising works. I don't go near Twitter (or Facebook) or anything similar any more than I'd patronize a bar where customers are routinely ejected through the plate glass window.

Ads on Twitter that I've seen recently vary widely (browser on PC).

Use uBlock Origin. I don't see any ads via the browser interface, only via the app on my phone.

What is also unique to Twitter is that I can hit "block @xxxxx" on every ad. If this feature actually works, I have no idea why Elon would keep it in "Twitter 2.0".

It's exceedingly useful, so I'm sure Space Karen will get round to deleting it soon because it costs Twitter to maintain and process the block lists.

Imagine if this was on TV, "Fuck Ford, I never want to see a Ford ad again!".

Just give me uBlock Origin for TV. I don't want any ads.

It's exceedingly useful, so I'm sure Space Karen will get round to deleting it soon

If there is anyone left in Twitter who can figure out how to remove that functionality without taking down the rest of the system.

Something's definitely changed in the adverts over the last few months. There used to be very few but they were almost all from major multinational organisations. Now every third message is 'promoted' but the relevance to my interests is atrocious. Someone needs to get sacked if your revenue halves despite increasing the number of ads on your platform 10-fold.

Well, to be fair there's probably a billion eyeballs less (and no more non-account lurkers to include), so it's more advertising to fewer people...

Musk wanted to switch to a subscription based income so Twitter could ignore demands from major advertisers. From that perspective it is clear why Musk focused on selling blue check marks instead of happy advertisers even if the business strategy competes with the underpants gnomes.

Musks takeover of Twatter might make it into future textbooks on economy as a textbook example of corporate murder and acquisition.

I hope this is the final nail in the coffin of the myth that billionaires are somehow smarter than the rest of us. Most of them won the birth lottery and that's really all there is to it. Where the rest of us would have to spend the majority of our money on silly things like rent and food, they had mommy and daddy to backstop them if some investment went titsup. They could then keep trying until they eventually hit on a successful idea.

As we've seen at Twitter, if Twitler had done literally nothing besides take the company private, he'd be in a significantly better financial position compared to now. Every single move he's made has only made things worse for the company. He clearly has no idea what he's doing, he's not intellectually curious enough to learn, and too proud to admit he's the one responsible since Twitter's woes went from bad to muuuuch worse almost instantly after he took over.

A scene from the show Archer that seems oddly relevant.

https://youtu.be/pgOZ5KqZtzY

I would imagine that once the dust settles and the blood has been mopped up, Musk will come up with some clever quote similar to Warren Buffett's assertion that investors would have been saved billions of dollars if someone had shot the Wright Brother's plane down. Buffett in NOT a fan of the airline industry. I wouldn't overlook the possibility that almost all tech companies are enormously overvalued by the financial markets and that Elon is just one of the first to discover that the hard way.

A somewhat less frivolous Buffett quote on airlines from the 1990 Berkshire-Hathaway annual letter.

Since our purchase, the economics of the airline industry have deteriorated at an alarming pace, accelerated by the kamikaze pricing tactics of certain carriers. The trouble this pricing has produced for all carriers illustrates an important truth: In a business selling a commodity-type product, it's impossible to be a lot smarter than your dumbest competitor.

There's more in the following years newsletters. They're available at [1]https://som.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2021-12/Module8-Readng.pdf if anyone is interested.

[1] https://som.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2021-12/Module8-Readng.pdf

That was a kill shot by itself. In order to buy he had to make an offer well in excess of value. He financed the deal by loading up Twitter with debt. The interest payments massively exceed Twitter's (pre-Musk) most profitable quarters.

The 'business plan' was to convince everyone to store their savings in the bank of Twitter by promising the highest interest rates. Where have we [1]heard that before ?

[1] https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

The thing about the alt-right chuds that Elon is so desperate to be down with, and something he genuinely shares with them, is that they are extremely bad at posting.

They all imagined people were ignoring them because of sinister shadowbans stealing all the engagement they deserved, but they believed this on account of being the most pompous, entitled manbabies imaginable. People were actually ignoring them because their thick-as-porridge honking is boring, crass and stupid. Every time one of their dunderheaded posts gets promoted over the insightful, witty or genuinely funny tweets from a regular user it makes Twitter worse for everyone, including them.

It used to be a site where you could find what a wide selection of people had to say about something. Now you can predominantly find what people stupid enough to pay for Twitter have to say about it and the truth is that you neither want nor need to.

Every one of these clod-gargling bluetick dunces must devalue Twitter far more than the $8 they are paying. I expect that as they progressively drive away everyone with anything interesting to say, they're going to be increasingly disinclined to keep paying as it transpires that if you're a certain type of person you really don't want to join any club that would have you.

"bit more promising."

Translation: I think there'll still be a few ads