Let's build a better one that people control.

That’s the whole point, no one is supposed to control it. Ugh, I sound silly, but here’s the Batman quote:

Not the hero we want, but the hero we deserve.

Yes, reverse the bans and connect this shit to Starlink and tell governments “I got no clue where those damn satellites are, can’t help ya, Trump’s tweeting from somewhere in Somalia with a VPN”.

Wow, yeah, what a utopian vision you paint.

Wait hold on a minute isn't there already some kind of amendment that makes this irrelevant?

Although since the Saudis own such a massive chunk of this newly private company I guess the US government is no longer the only one that Elon needs to concern himself with.

The man bought the company using Saudi cash. It is much, much more likely that he's going the other way on censorship.

Of course, astonishment might still be appropriate.

Didn't realize the Saudis were such big shareholders -- apparently now second only to Musk in total percentage of ownership https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/31/tech/murphy-saudi-musk-twitte...)

Second only to Musk, with 4% ownership (based on their stake, and total deal size).

Aren't the Saudi royal family the worst investors of all time?

Why? I have no information either way, but I'm curious what their reputation is.

Not to mention installing a social networking app doesn’t somehow make your iPhone capable of satcom.

>Imagine owning a social network that is a first class citizen to a global satellite network

I guess the zeitgeist really did decide Net Neutrality is a bad thing. Like imagine a telecom owning a social network?

Ok I imagined it and I hate it.

> Like imagine a telecom owning a social network?

You mean like Verizon and Tumblr? ;)

In order for it to be a social network, doesn’t it need to have users?

The months leading up to Verizon's fateful decision in December 2018, they were in the range of over 500 million MAU. Within a couple months after, the number was half that.

Failing to learn the lessons of Betamax continue to haunt decisionmakers, essentially.

The takeaway should likely be: Twitter will be fine if people can still post their porn there.

Wasn't the downfall of Betamax that the tapes were limited to 1 hour (which Sony thought was fine since that was the unit of commercial videotapes) and most people wanted to record sporting events that took longer than an hour?

That didn't really work out.

Exactly my point and that of GP.

That would be insanely impressive

A censorship-resistant communication system and a Starlink sized dish are a good recipe for people going to jail in countries where Twitter is actually censored.

Governments that engage in active censorship also frequently are not the warm-and-fuzzy entities that westerners are used to when they think of governments.

Sounds great, but who pays for it? The purchase of Twitter was done via loans and now, interest rates are not zero. Musk will have to service considerable debt to keep Twitter alive.

If he can pull this off, he'll go down in history as one of the must successful business person of his generation. If he fails, he will still has Paypal, SpaceX and Tesla to brag about.

Presumably Twitter will be immediately profitable after these layoffs. Enough to cover the interest on the debt? Not sure

That maybe takes care of debt servicing, but what about growth? Business exist to grow shareholder value (public or private). Elon needs to solve that puzzle.

If 50m people pay the 8 dollar a month fee that’s another decent chunk of change.

Will be interesting to see how all these rapid fire changes play out over the next few years.

I’m not sure the path to growth for Twitter depends on a lot of net new development. More so better monetization of the existing platform, which can largely be done via small tweaks here and there

if it fails it cements him as a loose canon who is now past him prime

It will cast a narrative of Musk as someone who is successful only in a low interest rate economy. When interest rates tighten, companies have to show they can deliver more than Treasury notes. That was really easy when the interest rates were close to zero.

> he purchase of Twitter was done via loans and now, interest rates are not zero. Musk will have to service considerable debt to keep Twitter alive.

Those loan rates were negotiated before the recent hikes. They had some range built in based on what the market did, but he is definitely paying below current market rates.