Comment by hooande | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hooande | Hacker News Reader

Twitter is not an institution. It is not a utility. People can just leave and go to another website. It will take time for a new website or websites to figure things out at scale, both technologically and socially. But people were patient with twitter in the fail whale days and I assume they'll be patient with another service in the future.

This guy is running twitter like it's his personal website. Which, it is. But people prefer services offered by businesses instead of individuals, because businesses have stable incentive structures and fiduciary responsibilities. No one likes it when the rules change arbitrarily every week, so businesses don't do that.

This level of chaos just isn't sustainable. I would never have thought that twitter could lose a significant portion of its user base in a short period. But that could very well happen now, and it's crazy.

It is kind of an institution, it really has been a de facto town square of the internet in a way that no other social media platform ever was.

But it could die. The network effect works both ways, and if big accounts emigrate it's in real trouble.

And yet, lots of people in pre-Musk times said "Twitter is not a government body, it's a private company, it can ban whoever it wants to ban". Now these people are leaving in droves.

I hope it's a good lesson for everybody that a private company can't be a de facto town square. An internet town square must be based on open protocols and, like an IRL town square, paid with taxpayers money. Otherwise, we're doomed to have this story repeated again and again.

> And yet, lots of people in pre-Musk times said "Twitter is not a government body, it's a private company, it can ban whoever it wants to ban". Now these people are leaving in droves.

Usually, this was followed by "and users are free to leave if they disagree". Nobody said you have to accept these decisions.

The problem is everyone is treating it de facto as an institution to the point that the Library of Congress preserves tweets, and nearly every government and corporate PR uses it to issue announcements.

According to European Union regulations, it's way more than just a website, let alone a personal website.

> People can just leave and go to another website

No, they can't while he's preventing them telling their friends and colleagues where they're going. Without your network, leaving is equivalent to using nothing since nobody you know will be there if you can't coordinate.

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