I think it is a little unfair for you to expect a good discussion when you line up no real reasons as to why you would be deleting your account other than you seemingly dislike Musk a lot.

I’m in the “fortunate” position to not have strong feelings about Musk either way. I may delete my Twitter account if he takes the company private, but that will be more of protest against billionaires owning platforms that I think should be non-profit organisations because of their public impact. That being said, I’m not sure how that is even relevant to most people here on HN as my “protest” is not really matter.

I think Twitter might be opening itself up to a competitor if Musk does something stupid with it. But Twitter is probably already pretty open to disruption as it is exactly for the reason big money sees wasted potential in it. “Owning” the space for public discourse is sort of twitters thing, but it’s much less good at it than LinkedIn is at owning corporate discourse as an example.

But it all sort of depends on what Musk does with it, doesn’t it? Maybe he will make it better.

Free speech, A truer town square to debate important issues, Remove bots, add new features, a fresh take on how to raise profits, better management, and he even mentioned building a homeless shelter in their HQ.

What’s free speech?

Twitter can be a pretty hostile place if you’re not a white straight man, can’t see Musk making it any betters for those people who are currently harrassed fir being women, queer or colored

The internet is a hostile place for everybody. Your race and gender is irrelevant.

> Twitter can be a pretty hostile place if you’re not a white straight man

On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.

> Twitter can be a pretty hostile place if you’re not a white straight man

I've never seen that. I've been a Twitter user since 2009.

We're back to believing Elon's promises because...?

It's more that your parent comment doesn't convey much information. I read it as "I don't think Musk acquiring twitter is a good thing" without explaining why and extrapolating that everyone else will feel the same way.

That seems like a very uncharitable interpretation. They weren't asking whether others agree with a statement of fact but whether a sentiment or feeling is common. Maybe it would have led to a more productive discussion if the question had been phrased more generally ("do people think there will be a lot of departures") without putting a personal spin on it, but the ugly turn things took afterward is more on the respondents than on the person asking. We're supposed to be curious, remember?

>extrapolating that everyone else will feel the same way

Whoa, where are you getting that?

You know where I'm getting it. If I say: "could this be the worst presidency our country has seen?" It's clear that it's not a real question, but an assertion. Similarly, when someone says "could this be the end of Twitter?" they are suggesting that it is in fact the end of Twitter.

You're right that such a thing is common, but I don't get the "fake question" vibe at all - sincerely, I don't. Maybe the parent is committing that sin, for all I know, but to assume so seems unnecessarily hostile. It's not worded particularly provocatively, and the question of the direction Elon would take the platform and whether it could really be the beginning of the end, for some definition of end, has genuine value. Also, please don't accuse me of being dishonest with, "You know where I'm getting it".

Sorry for assuming bad faith. It sounded like you were playing dumb in which case I feel there's no other way to respond.

I feel that 'assume good faith' has its limits since those who comment in bad faith have no restrictions while others are forced to respond as though nothing is wrong. So sometimes I feel the need to respond a bit more aggressively, maybe that's not in the goals of the site though.

Maybe because that doesn't add anything to the discussion. Most of us hardly care what you are going to do with your account.