As in, they are "the" internet for users who get it for free on their mobile plans and everything else costs exorbitant amounts of money.

I don't quite think Elon could do that, unless Starlink really takes off I suppose.

Being picky about where you make your money is absolutely essential for most businesses. Every dollar in revenue costs some amount of money to generate, and choosing the right market segments to invest that money in is a foundational part of a business plan.

The most important town square for the world.

https://youtu.be/owI7DOeO_yg

> The project was part of Elon Musk’s attempt to rid Twitter of spam. But rather than work to remove individual offenders, the company identified mobile networks associated with large spam networks in specific countries, and blocked users who relied on those networks from receiving SMS messages from Twitter, impacting people with two-factor authentication. Then it blocked traffic from those carriers completely.

> From 5:35 AM to 6:45 AM PT on Sunday, Twitter shut down access to the primary telecom providers in India and Russia, as well as the second biggest telecom company in Indonesia, Platformer has learned.

Ultimately stopped using it because it isn’t really for me. I also don’t care enough for anyone’s opinion that much that I’m willing to scroll through insanity, bots, and a holes to find a nugget. But I’m sure millions of others do enjoy that.

HN is my fav social media lol.

Meanwhile, all of my friends have erased their Twitter accounts (some migrating to Mastodon, others to other social media sites, others happily forgoing social media at all), all of the organizations I'm a part of have stopped using Twitter for official communication, the subreddits I follow have banned Twitter links, and my product has removed its Twitter integration. Large swathes of the internet are defederating from Twitter.

it doesn't matter if people use the platform more if they don't pay for the blue check or if advertisers are not interested in paying for ads.

Musk has already had one public tantrum about it. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1597285572699074560

So your friends are using twitter more and you just assume everyone else does too? Have you considered that people who have other opinions exist and theirs is as valid as yours?

I think parent is saying the opposite.

"Just to give some perspective that I don’t think HN really gets"

Parent has seen several comments assuming everyone's leaving Twitter and Musk is destroying the platform and himself and will never recover. I, likewise, reading Reddit get the same feeling that some pockets think everybody is leaving Twitter and going to Mastadon or something like this is a big cultural revolution. I think that is true in some pockets, but like parent I don't think anyone except Musk really knows what the actual engagement numbers look like, and even he doesn't know what they'll look like long term. But he is clearly making a bet, and it's silly for a biased hivemind to already assume his downfall when it actually hasn't happened yet. Just like there was a broad assumption that Twitter would have all kinds of technical issues after most of the staff was fired. Maybe that's still to come, but it hasn't really happened yet, and it can't be assumed.

Twitter isn't necessarily going to be an epic failure, and it's strange how some pockets of the internet feel they should make that assertion, whether you agree with Musk's politics or not. And politics is what it really comes down to. Politics is what drives the desire for these communities to see Musk fail, nothing else.

And at any rate it is very strange to compare Musk to SBF in any way.