{finally gets around to this in the flood of Tuesday substacks}
"To be clear, I don’t think this is benevolent; I think Twitter is bad and transformation would be welcome, if only because it might open new horizons of possibility."
Yep; completely agree with you.
"Look, I’m not saying that he’s making a wise business decision, here."
I'm inclined to think he'll wind up bailing in such a way as to wind up not losing too much money. That's the game he's been playing with his bitcoin holdings and the like. He might blunder into disaster though, but it'll be by accident. He'll try to make things better and make it worse.
Basic point is that the main 'free speech' platform/protocol (in the various forms it has existed on the internet across time) has lots of opponents and few allies; well-off authoritarian-leaning people really hate the idea of those people [insert identity here] talking among themselves, and worse, many of the people who want to talk among themselves don't want those *other* people [insert identity here] talking among themselves. (Encrypted chatting platforms are proliferating for a reason.) Likewise, many people don't want to be insulted by anonymous people but they don't want to be out and proud themselves (frequently for good reason) and here we go around the mulberry bush.
Basic speech rights (liberalism) are unpopular with most people, but they'd hate to give it up. Elon's just getting attention (and getting paid for it).
{finally gets around to this in the flood of Tuesday substacks}
"To be clear, I don’t think this is benevolent; I think Twitter is bad and transformation would be welcome, if only because it might open new horizons of possibility."
Yep; completely agree with you.
"Look, I’m not saying that he’s making a wise business decision, here."
I'm inclined to think he'll wind up bailing in such a way as to wind up not losing too much money. That's the game he's been playing with his bitcoin holdings and the like. He might blunder into disaster though, but it'll be by accident. He'll try to make things better and make it worse.
Basic point is that the main 'free speech' platform/protocol (in the various forms it has existed on the internet across time) has lots of opponents and few allies; well-off authoritarian-leaning people really hate the idea of those people [insert identity here] talking among themselves, and worse, many of the people who want to talk among themselves don't want those *other* people [insert identity here] talking among themselves. (Encrypted chatting platforms are proliferating for a reason.) Likewise, many people don't want to be insulted by anonymous people but they don't want to be out and proud themselves (frequently for good reason) and here we go around the mulberry bush.
Basic speech rights (liberalism) are unpopular with most people, but they'd hate to give it up. Elon's just getting attention (and getting paid for it).
elm
great post