> [...] perhaps Twitter was sold for its existing content rather than existing or active user base.

Not a very significant distinction: if active users stopped posting, scrappers wouldn't have much of a reason to keep scrapping.

AI startups don’t particularly care if content is 3 minutes old or 3 years.

Yet.

They absolutely do. What are you even saying?

AI startups training data covers content going back years. DALLE for example was trained on hundreds of year old paintings alongside more modern works.

Age may be included as part of the training but they generally want to suck up as much data as possible.

If you're adding new/marginal data you should want it to be as current as possible so it'll have things like trending slang terms.

> basically not owned by you, but the service.

It's shared ownership. You own it, but give Twitter non-exclusive permission to also use it.

This is why news agencies request permission from a twitter account before sharing a picture they took.

Twitter can delete the post without your consent, so you don't really own it.

You consented to their being able to delete it when you agreed to their terms of service. It’s like if you hire someone to clean your home. Mostly they’re tidying up and dealing with dirt and dust, but if they see what looks like a used napkin lying somewhere, they will probably throw it out without first asking if you still want it - without that being stealing and without ever owning it themselves.

It may seem weird weird to compare useful content to a used napkin, but hey, successful business founder stereotypes do quite often involve have an idea written on a napkin…

I didn't consent to anything, I don't have a Twitter account. I'm talking about people who do. And they often mistakenly think their content will stay on Twitter forever, so they don't need to back it up.

Fair enough. By “you consented … when you agreed”, I really meant “one consents … when one agrees”, as is common in informal English.

Yes, it’s a mistake to rely on social media content remaining up forever, agreed. That’s separate from ownership. Backups are important even for data on a hard drive you physically own, since hard drives can fail or be damaged or lost.

Sorry, I don't think I've ever seen “you” used as a generic pronoun in a past-tense sentence, which is why I took it personally.

Also fair - it’s possible that my choice of tense made that the only literal reading, but my point was intended as general and not accusatory.

You can't park there mate.

That's not past tense.

Ownership is not the same with right to display.

I can own a picture, but I can't place it on the NY Times website.

Was already the case for ICQ. (yes, it was in their ToS)

It's not though. They have a very permissive license but they don't have any actual IP ownership.