News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:X.com by sshine on Monday July 24, 2023 @05:09AM (#36844920)
Firing all those people is undoubtedly risky; Twitter’s unpaid office rent is an example of a consequence of that.

But the assessment was that there were way too many people to solve the task of running Twitter. And Twitter is still running.

Re:X.com by astrange on Monday July 24, 2023 @05:18AM (#36844996)
It sure wasn't running last week when it didn't load half the time I tried it.

(Some of that time it was trying to serve me intranet pages.)

Re:X.com by zpeti on Monday July 24, 2023 @05:29AM (#36845069)
There might be some outages, but still, Twitter as an entity is operating just fine, if Elon's claims are correct time spent on twitter is at record highs, and similarweb doesn't show any real decrease in visitors: https://www.similarweb.com/website/twitter.com/#traffic

Reddit, Twitter, Facebook all had outages in the beginning all the time, it's not a deal breaker for heavily network effect products.

So really, yes, getting rid of some staff has caused outages, but it's also sped up development of new features, and not really affected usage.

Re:X.com by wun0ne on Monday July 24, 2023 @05:50AM (#36845237)
What new features? Rate-limiting? $8 blue check amplification? Advertiser haemorrhage?
Re:X.com by sshine on Monday July 24, 2023 @06:44AM (#36845704)
Less shadow-banning based on personal views?
Re:X.com by lesuorac on Monday July 24, 2023 @07:04AM (#36845898)
You would call "less shadowing banning" a _new Feature_?

Like if I make a wrench and one year I make 50% less of them I wouldn't say I developed a new feature. If I created a slightly different wrench I might call it a new feature but just doing more or less of something I already have isn't _new_.

So to circle back, what new features has twitter developed?

Re:X.com by astrange on Monday July 24, 2023 @07:05AM (#36845905)
That's called working the refs. You just complain something's happening nonstop whether or not it actually is, and eventually the admins give you treats to shut you up. (Popular right-wing account "catturd2" constantly complains about this even though Elon put him on the special list that shows him in everyone's for you feed, along with dril and the menswear guy.)

In this case it is still happening because that's mostly bugs, and they definitely aren't fixing the bugs. Also, because some of the signal comes from how many people have blocked you, and personally repellent right-wingers get frequently blocked!

Re:X.com by zpeti on Monday July 24, 2023 @07:35AM (#36846202)
Edit button, separating for you and following, blue checks, 140+ character tweets, unlimited video, algorithm adjustments, live video streaming on the way.

At least be intellectually honest. Please. I know you hate Elon, but at least consider the actual facts. (This is more change than twitter did for 15 years before Elon)

Re:X.com by gingerrr on Monday July 24, 2023 @10:16AM (#36848372)
> separating for you and following

Are you counting the fact that those are now different UI tabs as a new "feature"? Twitter always had the ability to switch between chronological feed of just accounts you followed, and an algo-curated feed of those tweets + other tweets you may have interest in, sorted by interest rank - that's exactly what "for you" is now.

> blue checks

Really not sure what you're claiming here. Verification was already a thing, as was Twitter Blue (long form tweets for paid accounts) - the only "feature" elmo introduced is ambiguity about what that check represents - is it someone who has spent the last 15 years on twitter as a notable public presence with a verifiable identity? or some rando with $8 on a prepaid credit card? Who knows, now.

> unlimited video

to count this as a feature the video player has to actually work reliably. it does not, by any metric. endless buffer, glitching, skipping with no way to reload lost chunks. the 10s videos were an annoying limitation but they just worked.

> This is more change than twitter did for 15 years before Elon

Circles. Spaces. Communities. Community Notes. Co-tweets. Alt text tagging as a first-class citizen of image posting. User tipping options. NFT profile pics. These are all features released in the last 5 years of twitter before elmo took over.

If we're talking about intellectual honesty let's apply it evenly.

Re:X.com by astrange on Monday July 24, 2023 @10:45AM (#36848886)
Edit button and video streaming are not new. Editing was a Twitter Blue feature.

Remember when he said they'd turn fleets (Snapchat) back on months ago and didn't?