> seeming negligible external-facing impact on the core product
In both technical and product axes Twitter has already deteriorated massively, possibly beyond repair and the company might not make it to 2024, so I wouldn't call that "negligible".
In both technical and product axes Twitter has already deteriorated massively, possibly beyond repair and the company might not make it to 2024, so I wouldn't call that "negligible".
That said, I concur that Twitter is doomed. It was already not very profitable before advertisers started backing away, and Elon's tendency to "move fast and ignore regulations" won't serve him very well in the current climate of tightly regulated social media. Elon's piggy bank is no longer unlimited due to the revaluation of TSLA and the tendency for his huge sales to drive the price down even further.
Twitter had tightened the reigns on them years ago because it just cost them money to keep them alive. It makes sense that would be first on the chopping block when they're looking for cost-saving measures, and I figured it was inevitable regardless of the Elon takeover.
I have a feeling it's coming for reddit too. That one I dread cause their official app is horrible.
Here's an example I just pulled up that's the second thread on my feed: https://twitter.com/LordCarsonEsq/status/1615134592222257155
There are six replies here. If you refresh enough, you can see a different subset of two replies, so that's probably not a spam-filter.
I think early on I heard there was a 2FA outage? That was resolved fairly quickly.
The only issue is dumb changes, like the "no linking to other platforms" rule that was announced and then rolled back within the day, or adding view counts that add no value. But none of that is technical issues.
> I'm pretty sure breaking 3rd party clients was intentional.
> Twitter had tightened the reigns on them years ago because it just cost them money to keep them alive. It makes sense that would be first on the chopping block when they're looking for cost-saving measures, and I figured it was inevitable regardless of the Elon takeover.
I don't think that was technical ineptitude, but rather a cost-saving decision from the business.
I think the mistake you're making here is assuming that your average tech CEO is paying attention to the same degree you are. They aren't. They don't have time to notice all the many little things that degraded already, they just saw that the site didn't go down a week later and moved on.
Musk has enough money and influence to stress out his employees and userbase for decades.