231
submitted 1 year ago by hedge@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Moonrise2473@feddit.it 102 points 1 year ago

The value of his purchase of all that billions was essentially:

  1. The userbase

  2. The branding

  3. The software and the people that built it

Now that got rid of all three... Wasn't it 100x cheaper to just buy parler? Or just hire a single developer on Fiverr and start a defederated mastodon server

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 41 points 1 year ago

Either he's a raving idiot or someone was paying him to destroy Twitter. Or both.

[-] bad3r@lemmy.one 41 points 1 year ago

No one is paying him. He is just a dumbass with money.

[-] primalanimist@kbin.social 26 points 1 year ago

I doubt anyone could pay the man enough to blow 40 billion to tank a website. The moment you break something, the users will find a replacement and go there. This purchase was 100% ego. It changed no minds about Elon. His fanboys will still call this genius, and those who already knew he was a manchild are not suddenly thinking this was a mature, well-thought-out plan.

[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 29 points 1 year ago

We seem to forget this whole "Imma buy Twitter" was, in part, because Twitter refused to disable the account of the kid that was tracking his jet

[-] nan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 1 year ago

Who is still tracking his jet on mastodon and threads. I love it.

[-] Thrashy@beehaw.org 15 points 1 year ago

the kid that was tracking his jet

The kid that was reposting public flight tracking data of his jet. He's so fucking petty.

[-] Cube6392@beehaw.org 18 points 1 year ago

If the goal was just to shut down twitter that could have been accomplished day 1. My theory is he really didn't think he'd be stuck paying the high price he offered and now his goal is to file for bankruptcy after tanking the company, and to do it he has to look like hes trying to make it work.

Alternatively. He really is this big an idiot. It would be in line with the moron making an offer twitter couldn't refuse and then being surprised when they accepted

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] brothershamus@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

45 Billion bought a lot of eyeballs to watch him flame out over the canyon.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] LimitedWard@beehaw.org 93 points 1 year ago

Appropriate name for a social media platform that the internet has broken up with.

[-] loops@beehaw.org 48 points 1 year ago

Man, I love Block the Rich. No more musky spam. My internet smells so much cleaner now.

[-] Madcow@lemmy.sdf.org 58 points 1 year ago

So why are you commenting on a news article about Elon Musk? Already missing the smell?

[-] loops@beehaw.org 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes, exactly! I have no idea what you said, it's blurred out!

[-] Vilian@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

it was funny, but i didn't know about the extension

[-] troye888@lemmy.one 6 points 1 year ago

Well it only has 1 user according to the Mozilla store, so no surprise that no one had heard of it.

[-] PeachMan@lemmy.one 5 points 1 year ago

I think it's new, I've only seen people sharing it recently (in the past week). That count is likely outdated.

[-] sirdorius@kbin.social 22 points 1 year ago

I thought it was some dumb clickbait, but it's just dumb Elon

[-] Usernameblankface@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I'm having trouble seeing this as real news.

[-] brothershamus@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

In a world . . . in which one man spends 45 Billion dollars to destroy a global communications juggernaut in the most assinine, ridiculous ways ever . . . It's . . . The Rebrandening!

I mean, if he bought Coca-Cola and replaced sugar with vinegar, it'd be news, right?

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] amio@kbin.social 20 points 1 year ago

Ah yes, the edgiest of letters. That fits pretty well, actually.

[-] voidhearts@lemm.ee 20 points 1 year ago

It’s even more hideous than I was expecting. How is that even possible

[-] Railison@aussie.zone 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I remember visiting X.com in 2000 or so. Was a bank type website, which PayPal bought up. That’s probably how he got control of the domain. (ETA: more accurate answer below!)

But also, looks like the X11 logo

[-] zark@beehaw.org 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

X.com was the online bank that Musk co-founded and that some time after it merged with Confinity Inc. changed its name to PayPal (PayPal was a product of Confinity).

[-] deong@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago

If I recall correctly, he had the x.com domain and tried to rebrand PayPal to X. The board went, "are you a fucking idiot?" and replace him with Peter Thiel.

He's been trying to call stuff "X" since he was an edgy teenager. He just never had the good sense to grow out of it, and he fell ass backward into enough money that we all get to watch him go all "Star Wars kid" over and over again in public.

[-] SemioticStandard@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago

LOL @ Star Wars kid comment. Gave me a good chuckle. But, that’s not fair to the real Star Wars kid, my brother was just enjoying being him, living his best life! You do him dirty by debasing him to Musk’s level 😂

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Very_Bad_Janet@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

The X11 logo is much nicer.

[-] LoafyLemon@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago

I wonder what Xorg Foundation thinks of him using their logo.

[-] skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]

[-] IronTwo@beehaw.org 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is such a half-ass job at rebranding. They only changed the logos on their front page. All the wording, logos and icons are still the previous ones on their About the Company page, Brand Toolkit, Help Center, Developer Platform, Business and Advertising etc etc.

[-] ninchuka@lemmy.one 8 points 1 year ago

I mean, isnt everything musk does half assed?

[-] operator@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

The domain x.com, which Musk bought ages ago, also redirects to twitter

[-] LiamMayfair@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 year ago

The x.com domain was originally purchased by PayPal for over $8m back when Elon was still at the company. No one knows how much PayPal asked Elon for it back in 2017 when he bought it from them, but it was rumoured to be an eight digit figure.

[-] Tibert@compuverse.uk 13 points 1 year ago

Well, with all the porn on twitter, it may be an appropriate name.

There are already jokes in brand names like from French :

Official "X" account Msi France

[-] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 1 year ago

The domain x.com with no context sounds suspicious, yet it's just ~~Twitter~~ X.

[-] greeen_tomato@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago

That’s why they went with PayPal instead of x.com for the payment business. It’s funny that he takes that name out of the closet again.

[-] wjrii@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago

It's better. He specifically went out and PAID to buy the domain back from Paypal because he was so sure he'd need it again.

[-] accentgrave@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago

Everything he’s done with Twitter is great. It was time someone brought it down a couple dozen notches. Here’s hoping someone will do the same to Meta next.

[-] bigkix@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

I'm on Twitter for a long time now and nothing really changed. No one left. People that lean left are bitching about the platform but continue to tweet. Previously, the same was done by right leaning people.

[-] hoodatninja@kbin.social 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Twitter has lost over 10% of its users and engagement/monthly active users is down, Musk even admits they’ve lost users. Traffic is also going down with the API change/requirement to be on Twitter proper, as well as limiting the number of tweets one can see.

Considering how much a Twitter is bots, that means the number of actual people who left is actually much higher. So yeah, something did change lol just because you haven’t noticed it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

Edit: I’m not sure why you are talking about left and right users tbh. Seems like you’re kind of shoehorning a “both sides“ comment since no one is talking politics here.

[-] Puppy@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago

Yeah nah, pretty much everybody of importance left the platform quite some time ago actually. Twitter truly has turned to shit too. All you see in your feed is the same extreme-right propaganda we've seen for 4+ years since the pandemic. It's just that now it's boosted by Elon's fuckery. Also, there's a reason why they're begging us to come back.

They created their own little echo chamber and now they have nobody to argue with. That's what happen when a far-right social media is created usually. They realize they aren't the powerhouse they thought they were and all of a sudden it's just "uh, where is everybody?!?!?"

If you want my opinion, it's 1000% deserved and they can suck my dick, I ain't coming back just to hear "VACCINE BAD ORANGE MAN GOD PLS JOIN US WE CAN KILL EVERYBODY THAT LOOKS LIKE A JEW!"

Noooooooo thank you

[-] brothershamus@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

Well you're not on Twitter now, are you. Neither is anyone else. Also they're not tweeting anymore, they're . . . xing? And per the article that was the last email from the twitter.com domain (supposedly) so . . what, is it x.com now?

The guy's, like, a 5-D chess jenius.

[-] GunnarRunnar@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

The biggest wtf in this is that tweeting, a term that's been ingrained into modern lexicon, is becoming irrelevant. That's like the greatest advertisement you can have for your platform.

[-] primalanimist@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago

Over 50% of its advertisers left. That means most of the brands are not interested in the kind of people left in the toxic wasteland called X.

[-] loobkoob@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Also they're not tweeting anymore, they're . . .

Spewing xcrement

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Seathru@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago

My brain autocorrects x.com to x-com every time. And I just couldn't get into that game.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Ragnell@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

Everyone who called Firefish stupid needs to come see this and reconsider.

[-] Hyperreality@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

If they're no longer using the twitter brand, maybe someone else can use it.

[-] Username02@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

With that I expect reddit to rebrand itself to "W" not too late after.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] pglpm@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The title of the post is incorrect. It should be: "Elon Musk rebrands Twitter as the X11 Window System".

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
231 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

37554 readers
172 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS