Comment by BulgarianIdiot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BulgarianIdiot | Hacker News Reader

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When something is "super strange," the odds are you don't understand the situation, as is the case here. No one cares about $8/mo. The problem is that these people at large don't agree with how Twitter was changed under Musk, not technically, not politically, not managerially, not in any way, and they don't want to vote in confidence of it by having this checkmark on. And the checkmark is now associated with trolling and fringe rightwing behavior.

Many of these people built their own audience on Twitter over the years, long before Musk decided to buy it. So they feel that's an investment they made in the site, and their followers are something they created, and Elon's Twitter is currently being only an unfortunate mediator of it, holding them hostage.

So they feel stuck. They don't want to quit yet, hoping for a change (ALTHOUGH MANY HAVE QUIT), but they also don't want to encourage Musk and be seen to support his behavior and actions... which are frankly embarrassing.

> holding them hostage

elon threatens to put them on the next starship test? get real, they are not hostages, there are plenty of alternative platforms, you have only to select one, or more.

What part of "building an audience" was unclear to you? You don't just move a social network and everyone moves over with you. Maybe research "network effects"?

In fact, exactly because there are PLENTY of alternative platforms, Twitter still exists. If there were only 2-3 major Twitter competitors, people WOULD move. As is, they don't know where to move.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

“Building an audience” on someone else’s platform is a recipe for continual butthurt.

This is exactly what was said when Twitter and Facebook and whatnot started. If your business is solely on someone’s platform, you’re at risk.

The proper, long term way to do it is to make a site, post content there and then post links onto social media while driving audience toward a mailing list or some other subscription that you control. It was only a matter of time that Twitter put the squeeze on and $8/month is just the beginning. I expect, over time social media will get to equilibrium of taking 30% of whatever the value of the audience is.

its not clear how much of an audience they "have built" if that audience is so fleeting as to only watch your "content" if its smashed in their faces.

Let me guess, they should receive notifications for new content by telepathy, or alternatively open a tab for every person they like and refresh every 5 minutes.

Any other brilliant ideas?

or check? i follow some content creators, and if they were suddenly wiped from a platform, you can bet i would seek them out.

if this does not happen, i dont think you can say they have built an audience, they have merely done some things that makes the platform push the stuff to people, and the instant that stops, they dont exist to the "audience"

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