"Shrinking product" - This is not true. It's important to note that Twitter is not shrinking. It's simply not growing as fast as it used to. Generally this is not too bad for a company this size, considering the massive userbase it already has. Twitter only pales in comparison to Facebook.
"Unhappy users" - People spending less time on Twitter does not mean they are unhappy with the product. Twitter does not lend itself to long and continuous browsing sessions like Facebook. It's just the nature of the product. People open it up, read a few tweets and then close it.
I think that qualifies as a shrinking product: slight increase in the number of users combined with a massive decrease in the time of use per day.
Every journalist worth their salt uses it, and it's essentially the public front for any media facing company. Sure, every day users may be contributing less, but it still seems to be a pretty meaningful megaphone for brands. I don't exactly see that changing: I don't contribute to Twitter, but I do consume the tweets of brands / companies / significant people that publish them.
Twitter is dying despite every MSM site being like 'Look we're on twitter' start giving a shit about it even though no one even watches TV anymore.
Both pieces of their business model, advertising and users, strongly benefit or hurt because of network effects. As the network shrinks, the value does not drop linearly. This is an assault from both sides. Because Twitter's growth is now definitely flat and likely is shrinking this is pretty bad.
While you can't do X or Y on Instagram or Snapchat now doesn't mean you won't in the future. Clearly both took a big chunk of Twitter's users. Tweeting pictures was previously a large use case. So was tweeting and sharing things with friends. That you can create a video of what happened rather than typing it out isn't necessarily a different product or use case.
In terms of news - FB, Google, Apple are all going after that market hard right now. The mass use case for Twitter probably made this sub use case look bigger than it was - news and instant events. Things could still change, but it is hard to see Twitter out-innovating their problems when they no longer have the social tail winds pushing them forward. And at some point the cash is going to matter a lot too.
Does it make a lot of sense for someone with a lot of users to buy Twitter and try to revamp it? Plausibly, but the brand damage definitely has been done with the growth demographics. That is kind of the mistake Myspace's acquirers have made. At some point a brand goes from valuable to doing just the opposite.
I bought Twitter shares and ended up selling them all once this settled in. There still probably is a threshold where an executive that is looking for value vs growth tries to acquire and you can arbitrage the difference.
Unfortunately the bulk of Twitter's remaining value is probably going to be realized by there competitors as a case study for the survivors - FB/IG, Snapchat, and future players.
Not to current and past Twitter investors. They expected a lot more.
Some Epictetus or Boethius salve on their wounds, and they'll be alright.
But if users lose enough interest, there won't be anyone to do free reporting for the news media.
In fact, I do not and never will use twitter for more than reading and sso--but it is still irreplaceable for that reading. Is twitter just the next newspaper?
Maybe they are onto something. Twitter is Live and Live is Twitter. and Live is all the rich interactions.
1. Shrinking product - this isn't about comparing to facebook, it's about comparing to 2015 twitter.
2. Unhappy employees - especially high turnover at the top, which is universally a bad sign.
3. Unhappy users - users spending way less time on twitter.
4. Unhappy investors - stock price is wayyy down.
5. Happy competitors - a lot of the "cultural significance" is moving to instagram, snapchat, and others.
Twitter isn't a successful medium sized company, it's a large company that is in trouble. Maybe it will become a successful medium sized company one day, but that process will be painful for a lot of people.