Great for the fediverse but also weird reason to jump ship. All the other bullshit was fine, but “whoa they changed the logo now I’m out”?
A lot of people stay because of lingering attachment to the platform. As weird as it is, changing the branding subconsciously tells the human brain “This is a new platform” and that makes switching mentally easier.
You’ve been considering leaving Twitter for a while, and suddenly one morning the bird has flown and Twitter has left you instead.
I think it’s also a clear signal that things are really never going to return to normal, it’s only getting worse from here. Which is easy those of us on the outside to observe, but maybe slightly harder from the inside when you still have most of the community still intact and posting.
I think some of us also had hopes that the new CEO would put a leash on Musk and steer Twitter into calmer waters again, but this was just proof that Musk is still doing wtf he wants and the CEO is just there for show. So people have now abandoned their last bit of hope and therefore abandoned T…I mean X as well.
While I haven’t been an active user in a longer time, I’ve still been a very active lurker until Musk took over. By now, I’ve only checked Twitter every now and then when bored, to see what happened (as I mostly used Twitter as some kind of news feeds for stuff I couldn’t easily follow in any other way). But today I started migrating off completely - going through my follow list one by one and finding ways to follow those things (like local police, local town, local zoo, etc.) in other ways.
For some that means slower news, or only the most important news - which kinda sucks, as e.g. local police info were good to have in real time during major events or when there was some protest going on. For some this even means mailing lists, ugh.
And a few I couldn’t replace at all, so I’ll miss out on those news. Sucks, but hopefully those people/entities will provide their news feed through some better means sometime now.
I think it’s spot on. It’s people who were already going through the stages of grief, were kinda stuck in “bargaining” (like: “nah, Twitter is not really dead, it’ll come back”), and the symbolism there about Twitter really being gone-gone fast-tracked them to depression/acceptance.
The stages of grief don’t have to go in that order. People can be angry at Twitter and then jump to acceptance that its never going back. No fast tracking needed.
- Denial: “There is no way Elon would do that to Twitter.”
- Anger: “This is stupid. Why would Elon do this to Twitter? He’s making things so much worse!”
- Bargaining: “Maybe if I hold out he’ll revert the changes. Maybe Elon has some good left in his heart.”
- Depression: “Why do stupid things like this happen to me?”
- Acceptance: “Looks like Twitter’s dead in the water, we should move on.”
They finally started to read the room and noticed the furniture they liked wasn’t there and had been stolen. We’ve already figured out Musk’s antics and that he’s a deplorable human being. They’re finally starting to open their eyes and pay attention, especially now that he’s meddled with their toy.
When spez doubled down and Reddit imploded i moved to lemmy. I also discovered mastodon. But then i realized the reason i used twitter was to follow certain people/accounts none of which are on mastodon.
We had a reason to ditch Reddit, because they forced everyone off our beloved third party apps. But twitter didn’t have this kind of meltdown. Im only a consumer on Twitter, and its still working fine. No reason to quit. The rate limit is dumb but it isn’t the end of the world.
Couldn’t agree more. I was a fail whale era twitter user. Wayyyyy early user. I ditched it a little bit before musk actually, but I still ended up seeing threads here and there because of Reddit.
Just today I landed on a Twitter thread, saw that x and it was like, strangely repulsing…I wanted to get the hell out of there asap
I’ve already had several non-tech people say something along the lines of “What the heck is this X thing on my phone?”
I gotta wonder how many other people are just impulse uninstalling something they don’t recognize off their phone as well, since ol’ Musky boi did this with basically zero user notice as well.
I had a similar thought. Non-techies are going to open up Twitter and see a different logo but it the text still says Twitter and think they’re on a phishing site.
I think a good amount of it is also “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” Twitter users have been taking abuse after abuse. Like many others have stated, they use Twitter to follow specific people. If those people aren’t on other platforms, then they’re going to stay. But after a certain point, the cost becomes too high. Now the platform is rebranded and now it looks as alien as it’s begun to feel. I think that’s why so many are once again leaving. Before they could just ignore everything else going on and try to move on with their day. Not there’s a big, fat X reminding them of how much they’re starting to/already hate the platform now.
Because tweeting and being on Twitter is culturally relevant. Twxing and being on =…,/‘’‘’°°X°°“”/,…= is sad and cringe.
People run away from things which are sad and cringe.
People run away from things which are sad and cringe.
Threads would like to have a word
The logo change has brought out a new wave of articles and tweets about it, and people go “oh no that’s right I’m on twitter! Well THIS is the final straw! Thank goodness there were all these hate articles and tweets that reminded me I was supposed to be angry!”
Also, many of the people who “jump ship” are right back on Twitter within a week. mastodon.social has an entire graveyard of celebrity accounts that haven’t been posted to in months because the outraged celebrities just went back to twitter.
I’m happy for Mastodon (I run a fediverse instance and the more users there are the more chances of interesting people and the like), and some of those people do realize they like the vibe more and stay, and a lot of those bumps are significant for the platform. The thing is, we’re talking a few hundred thousand, maybe a million accounts of 200 million daily active users on twitter.
Remember why Ray Kroc wanted McDonald’s… because of the name/brand. Anybody could make a hamburger/shake shop or shack but he had to have the name because the name was a seller.
Nobody thinks X is cool other than Elon musk and him switching to it is another signifier of how uncool Twitter has become. Every little thing adds to the flow of traffic to the exit.
None of it was fine, people have been browsing for alternatives ever since Elon Musk took over.
At most, many hoped things would ultimately stay the same, which they definitely didn’t. The biggest hurdle is that a lot of people there are waiting for their friends and favorite content creators to pick what place they will move to, and content creators are extra hesitant because they don’t know if they will have as much following and reach as they used to. I see a bunch of smaller creators pretty much mourning their careers.
This will be one of the first “in your face” things that is immediately noticable by a finicky user base that only understands and associates value to popular brands. Musk just removed the popular and familiar brand that people are comfortable with, so why would those people stay?
And probably won’t matter much.
This user surge will probably go crawling right back in a week or two.
Also how do they know it is a twitter exodus and not a Reddit or Threads exodus? I quit reddit entirely and I know many who have as well. It seems much more likely to be the case.
Definitely I understand your first comment but I don’t understand the second. I don’t think it looks like a swastika but more of an energy drink.
Yeah it makes no sense. I think the media is just out to trash Elon at every opportunity for any miniscule thing. He is somewhat of an outcast of the billionaires club in that he dies not appear to want to enslave humanity and deny the poors of their rights.
Yea he just settles for treating his employees with no respect and firing them on a whim without their owed severance pay.
Yeah, I mean, who hasn’t wanted to experiment with putting microchips into baboon skulls, or called someone a pedophile just because they hurt your feelings, or treats their workers like absolute trash? He’s just a regular guy doing regular things and the media is using him as their whipping boy.
Transhumanism is a thing whether we like it or not, hopefully Elon will do it ethically. I don’t care if he said mean things to somone, that is between him and the individual. Provide examples of him treating his employees like trash?
What are you on about? Every opportunity to trash him??? He can easily change his behaviour, he’s a trash person so he doesn’t. He absolutely wants to deny the poor their rights, look at how he treats the workers of twitter and how he spoke of those he fired. I truly don’t know how you can be this blind unless it’s willful. Get real
Twitter shrunk its staff by 3700, many of whom left of their own volition. Examples of some companies that cut more jobs then Twitter that nobody seemed to givr a damn about: Amazon 27k Meta 21k Accenture 19k Alphabet 12k Microsoft 10k Salesforce 8k Disney 7k Dell 6.6k
I guess the people working at those companies just don’t matter huh?
I don’t see any other billionaires fighting for basic human rights like free speech other than Elon. He doesn’t have a perfect track record on that count but it is better than the flat 0 of the rest of that clique.
Wait, what? Have you ever heard of longtermism? “Your stupid peasants’ suffering today matters little if we can take humanity to spaceTM. Don’t hold back progress.” If this is not enslaving humanity and shitting on the poor, I don’t know what is.
What are you even talking about? Care to elavorate? How is he making anyone suffer?
Musk has openly stated his support for the Republicans and for right wing causes countless times during his twitter shitposting period. If anything he has more openly voiced support of enslavement of humanity and the denial of the rights of poors than most of his billionaire colleagues, who are mostly all too smart to voice those ideas anywhere in public.
Mastodon has become super stable. It is the place to go.
Absolutely - though some people find it too bare bones. It’s designed to be a bit of an anti-Twitter, after all.
Those looking for something more flashy might be interested in checking out, for example, Firefish. The Firefish site also includes a neat “Fediverse software comparison”, which lists popular federated services and some of the features they currently have. Personally I prefer the stripped down approach of Mastodon, but reasonable people might disagree. :)
Oh, and there’s also elk.zone, an online user interface for Mastodon that behaves a lot like Twitter. Similar to those “old lemmy” sites (like old.lemmy.world) in a way, but as an online app similar to wefwef.app.
Is Firefish the same thing as Calckey?
I created a Calckey account a couple of weeks ago but it was basically a weird Mastodon with even fewer people from what I could tell.
Yes, Calckey updated and rebranded (?) as FireFish. https://joinfediverse.wiki/What_is_Firefish%3F
Important to note, the fewer people should not significantly restrict your experience. Everything is part of the same network.
Yes, it’s just a rebrand. It’s similar to Mastodon in some ways but with many many more features.
It’s federated so you can follow and interact with all the same Mastodon people.
Problem is it’s not super stable and the federation doesn’t work too well…
Xodus*
Yes, ‘X’ odus
It amazes me how badly these billionares are at running businesses.
Like im an engineer and Not in my wildest dreams could I have destoyed a company like Twitter faster than musk.
Like Did he do it on purpose?
It HAS to be on purpose. Nobody can get to billionaire levels of wealth and be completely inept, right? RIGHT?
Begin rich makes one feel infallible. Thinking one’s self to be infallible leads to these kinds of decisions.
Unfortunately, once you get enough money the system is designed to keep you wealthy no matter how much you fuck up.
Like, Trump has had multiple failed companies including casinos thay failed because he had them competeing with each other.
Yet while he’s probably not a billionaire he still has the status of “wealthy” and managed to fail into the most powerful position in government.
Musk had more money, and therefore can fuck up way harder and still be fine. He could burn Twitter to the ground for all the effect it would have on him.
The reason is that they know people with money, and those people listen. For example, Musk only had to post about his attempt to buy Twitter in a groupchat, and he got Billions of Dollars from them to do it, unchecked. Regular people don’t get their ear, and even if they do for some unfathomable reason, everything is checked meticulously.
Lol i just cant imagine that level of ineptitude.
Am I living in a simulation?
The level of ineptitude is common, the combination of wealth and that much ineptitude, usually less so, given being able to afford the best education and advisers. So it takes a special sort of billionaire to be this inept.
It’s just the Dunning-Kruger effect at work, he thinks because he successfully ran a rocket manufacturing company to viability that he’s definitely going to be able to run a social media company too.
Turns out the B2B style government contract model isn’t exactly the same as B2C social media advertising model.
I’d argue that it’s Drunning-Kruger plus being surrounded by stupid yes-men that agree with everything you say or do
His initial wealth of 42 million dollars came from working on travel software. He used that wealth to become rich by founding x.com, a payments company that failed. How does a failing company lead to massive wealth you might ask? Well, that failing company merged with PayPal.com, and Musk was CEO of the merged company for about 6 months before he got fired. PayPal went on to be huge, so after he was fired he made his fortune on his shares. Next he invested money in Tesla, bought the title of “co founder” even though he wasn’t, waited 7 years passively then noticed the company wasn’t going anywhere, replaced an exec or two and then took credit for turning the company around. So yeah, maybe that’s his end game? Make Twitter (now x.com) as bad as the old x.com so someone merges and gives him stocks and fires him again?
And yet, despite all that, this somehow still feels notably inept, even for a man whose primary goal in life, at the moment, appears to be demonstrating how thin his attachment to reality grows by the day.
Like Did he do it on purpose?
At this point, I’m gonna say yes. Yes, he did do it on purpose. Why? The conspiracy theorist in me says it’s to push people into Meta’s Threads, building it up even more before it federates, in an attempt to kill the Fediverse like Google did with XMPP, because the Fediverse is the fastest growing bastion of corporate-influence-free speech on the Internet.
Or he’s just an idiot. 🤷♀️
Like Did he do it on purpose?
I think this gives him credit where it isn’t due 😂
Personally, I think he’s just a magic blend of incompetent, arrogant, and in over his head. Large companies are slow moving for a reason and we’re seeing why in real time.
It’s like he has a bet that he had to destroy Twitter but he wasn’t allowed to just shut it down or kick everyone off.
Every move has been bad. It has to be on purpose. Is this how billionaires get their kicks?
The investors were the kind of people that don’t want the kind of on the ground, quick fact reporting that happened during uprisings and the like.
It can’t be a coincidence. They’re tanking the most popular tool for getting quick communication out.
