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Comment by lowdose | Hacker News Reader

Why isn't Twitter using and backing ActivityPub?

It sounds pretty much what Facebook has done with login with Facebook for developers. Except that the network effects aren't controlled by 1 commercial company but is an open source effort.

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What does Twitter stand to gain from it? They’re also notorious for disabling 3rd party integrations and seem to prefer a strong walled garden.

Exactly for their notorious reputation. A lot of developers are going to change their mind about Twitter. To survive Twitter needs to innovate and become more open.

The fact that Twitter has never made any profit and lacks a viable business model and yet is backed by "rich dudes" makes me assume that it is this vitriol inducing hate speech factory on purpose. There is no sane discourse possible on this platform and that is for a reason and not by accident.

Thus I would rather see Twitter die or fade away than see it succeed.

> Twitter has never made any profit

Twitter's operating income in 2019 was +453 million $, with net income at +1.47 billion $.

I stand corrected.

What is the business model?

Same as everyone else. Targeted ads.

Twitter has made up all their losses from 2010-2017 in just 2018 and 2019. They’re on pace to possibly hit $2B in profit in 2021. They are a pretty healthy, profitable company right now. Their PE ratio isn’t high for a tech company.

Jack said he hired a team to build a NIH version of decentralized social networking.

That’s misleading. They talked about considering the problem and creating a team to investigate solutions.They were clear about the fact that they would consider existing projects if they match their requirements.

And that's all we've heard about it. I think ActvityPub definitely does not match their requirements, and also, I doubt any federation system does.

I'm saying this because their primary requirement is clearly to have strict control over their own^H^H^Huser's content.

With blockchain!

Blockchain. 2020.[0]

[0] https://xkcd.com/2267/

How do you think Twitter makes money?

Advertisement like Facebook, but I'm arguing Twitters network effects are not as strong as Facebook.

They have paid API tiers also I believe? It's been a while since using it.

In FY2019, they had ~3bn advertising revenue and ~465mm in "data licencing and other".

https://s22.q4cdn.com/826641620/files/doc_financials/2019/q4...

That's where Mastodon comes in.

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