During some of the recent shows highlighting issues with payday lending these sorts of strategic delays were mentioned in the light that they can cause irregularly paid workers to have problems actually getting money out of their paycheck - forcing them into more borrowing until they are able to clear their checks.
Again, twitter is just silliness, but the banking example is a lot more serious of a case where the pros and cons need to be very carefully weighed.
Would you say the same about your phone number? If not, why? If I run my business on Twitter (or YouTube, or Facebook) is it that different from a bank?
I'm not clear on what the real point of this question is - twitter is a terrible platform to use for actual communication. Their sorting by "relevance" can cause recent messages to get lost in the shuffle and randomly mess with your visibility. It may be you're considering twitter as a business in which to coordinate product sales, but I'll assume it's for customer relations management, many companies that have a twitter account for CS stuff also offer email, messanger (of some sort) and phone if you have an issue you need to resolve due to the fact that platform just isn't well suited for business - the network effect of it is surprisingly low (a _lot_ of people aren't on or don't regularly use twitter), it is semi-public which may violate your business concerns and... you're handing the keys to your reputation to the third party that has acted poorly in the past.
If you check out youtubers talking about youtubers (I have no specific example on hand) they tend to complain endlessly about how the trending algorithms can drive thousands of potential viewers toward or away from their channel for no particular reason - there the network effect is strong enough that they don't have an option though, if your business is streaming a show then YouTube offers a much richer starting viewer base.
I guess my assumption is, if your business doesn't force you to use a particular social media platform exclusively then... use some other communication method per preference?
I'm really just confused by the question though - these things are not the same and twitter is simply not as important as the place your money lives (and I think pretty much everyone would agree? Maybe I'm getting too old)
Twitter seems to be a rage factory and amplifier, a shitty blogging format, and very occasionally a way to twist the arm of recalcitrant customer service.
The value proposition for me is receiving targeted news/information disseminated in a convenient format. As a concrete example, I'm crewing/pacing at a 100 mile trail run in two weeks, and I'm subscribed to that event's twitter feed. It's the Umstead 100 in case you are curious (@Umstead100). During the event, it will tweet out news and updates of interest to participants, volunteers, and others.
Yes, they could probably text everyone, or continuously update the website, or send emails - but Twitter is perfect for this situation and others like it: content/updates produces and consumed on mobile devices, sending frequent short updates with relevant info, etc.
Twitter has its abuses, but so does everything. Next time you're ready to shit all over Twitter, just remember that what you are likely ACTUALLY raging about is their userbase, i.e. the public.
> Yes, they could probably text everyone, or continuously update the website, or send emails - but Twitter is perfect for this situation and others like it: content/updates produces and consumed on mobile devices, sending frequent short updates with relevant info, etc.
Twitter is a poor choice for cases where you want to specifically subscribe to something, because it's deliberately designed as a global popularity contest/rage generator. A Facebook group, Discord, heck even Tumblr or Medium would be a better choice for that kind of use than Twitter.
> Twitter has its abuses, but so does everything. Next time you're ready to shit all over Twitter, just remember that what you are likely ACTUALLY raging about is their userbase, i.e. the public.
No, Twitter has a series of deliberate design decisions that result in worse interactions than any other platform. The limited message size strips away nuance and reasoned discussion, in favour of zingers and outrage. Their algorithmic feed shows the most "engaging" tweets while suppressing the follow-up discussion, so you'll see a controversial tweet without seeing the existing replies or subsequent retraction. The rage storms aren't just people being people, they're people being nudged into behaving a particular way by Twitter's optimized-for-engagement UI. There's a reason other platforms don't have these problems.
Speaking of design decisions, here's a bit [1] about how the "quote tweet" encourages the behavior of "dunking", a usage I have only ever heard in regards to Twitter. Basically, if anyone with a Twitter account says something you think is stupid, you quote tweet them and "dunk" on them about how stupid it is and they are. Then everybody piles in and retweets the "dunk", perhaps adding their own riposte. And the original poster is only a click away in the quote, so you can then go to their profile and find other things to dunk on, send mean DMs, etc.
[1] https://slate.com/technology/2017/12/dunking-is-delicious-an...
Quoting people to negate or mock their argument has been around since Usenet - well, much longer in literary terms but I'm citing Usenet as an example of a system that's almost real-time and where it can be a spontaneous emotionally driven decision. It may not be called 'dunking' on every platform but the phenomenon is universal.
It may have occurred occasionally on other platforms, but the difference in degree is enormous enough that it's a de facto difference in kind.
(a) and (b) are some of the lowest of bars. Even ISIS passes those, along with tons of other things (deep fried Mars bars, for one).
The parent made a qualitative argument and/or value judgement. Mere existence doesn't negate it, arguments why his values are bad, or shouldn't be taken into account, might.
I disagree pretty strongly.
Twitter is much more important than the bank I keep my money in.
Banking in fungible. Twitter gives me access.
I've arranged meetings with the partners of the biggest VC fund in Australia sorely via Twitter. I've had in depth discussions of the details of ML models with their authors via Twitter.
Generally speaking I'm much more relaxed about a 2 day delay in my banking than a 2 day delay in Twitter.
Maybe I'm getting too old
I'm 43, so I doubt it's that.
"Banking in fungible." You cannot instantly replace a bank account, transfer credit, or make changes without the help of the bank itself yet twitter can instantly be replaced by many forms of communication (SMS, Email, IRC, Talking, etc).
"I'm much more relaxed about a 2 day delay in my banking than a 2 day delay in Twitter." So if your car is on empty and you stop to buy gas only to find that your checking and credit accounts (from the bank) have a 2 day delay, you would find that acceptable!?
The network and the way communication happens on those is not the same.
So if your car is on empty and you stop to buy gas only to find that your checking and credit accounts (from the bank) have a 2 day delay, you would find that acceptable!?
Please don't misquote me. The Generally speaking part is important here. Generally speaking, I don't let my car get to a situation where I'm on empty (I think I've been in that situation once in the last 20 years). And if the worst happened, it would suck but I'd ring a friend and it would be inconvenient but that's all.
OTOH, I've had multiple meetings in the last year where my only communication has been by Twitter and we've been arranging where to meet in the minutes before via it.
No.
>If not, why?
Because a phone is a universal method of communication, for businesses, spouses, families, friends, and everything in between.
Twitter is yet another social media gossip discussion site, just one with a gimmick (limited characters).
>If I run my business on Twitter (or YouTube, or Facebook) is it that different from a bank?
The only businesses run on Twitter are ads, influencers, and PR -- and those deserve to die anyway.
Isn't that covered under "influencers"? What tangible benefit does Twitter provide to a working makeup artist (ie someone doing makeup for films/tv/photography/etc)? Sure, there are makeup artists that run businesses on Twitter, but their business is selling branded makeup and promoting sponsored products. That type of business is 100% reliant in social media, but aside from influencers are there any working professionals that would be unemployed without Twitter or Instagram?
It was one of the premier sources for propaganda during a certain country's recent election. It has been used to coordinate protests. It's been used to break national news. You can get minute-by-minute updates of events from it. Let's not pretend that one of the world's most-used communication platforms doesn't play a huge role in modern discourse.
To contrast though, if a service being a premier source of propaganda (avoiding the question of this specific case since... politics) and offers no other value, then it's actually worse than trivial it's harmful.
So, it's a mixed bag. I still wish there was a better engineered platform than twitter out there though.
It can be used to influence elections, to shape public opinion, to market products etc. Billions are at stake. It's real. It's not silliness.
It's not an inherently bad thing to do, but it's easy to overdo, and on a company that depends on network effects it can be very dangerous.