Oh, Elon. When will you study? By no means, if this newest growth is something to go by: in line with a memo reported on by the Wall Avenue Journal (opens in new tab), an inner valuation has simply positioned Twitter’s whole worth at round 20 billion {dollars}. Hilariously, that’s lower than half of the $44 billion Musk initially paid for the social media web site again in October 2022.

However it appears Elon isn’t content material with simply sitting within the gap he’s fallen into; some unpaid intern has handed him a shovel, and he’s gonna carry on digging down till everybody on Twitter is paying for Twitter Blue – or the location collapses completely.

Musk’s newest transfer to pull extra individuals kicking and screaming into $8-subscription land is to disclose extra limitations on free accounts; except you cough up for a Blue membership, your tweets gained’t be really helpful to different customers within the ‘For You’ tab, and non-verified customers gained’t be allowed to vote in polls both.

Now, any Twitter consumer with two mind cells to rub collectively (so, no less than half of them) can most likely already let you know that the ‘For You’ web page is rubbish, and it’s actually value sticking to the ‘Following’ tab in order for you one thing approaching the unique Twitter expertise. However shutting non-paying customers out of polls completely is, nicely, a dick transfer from Musk – maybe he’s scared there is likely to be a repeat of the embarrassing ballot the place he was instructed by the location’s consumer base to step down as CEO.

Opinion: Cheer up – it would by no means occur

It’s value allowing for that these newest dying throes from the apparently-cursed social media platform come instantly from the horse’s mouth – that’s to say, Elon’s personal Twitter account. Which means we should always take them with a sprinkling of sodium, since Musk has tweeted out ‘upcoming options’ prior to now which have by no means really materialized.

Musk claims that the adjustments are ‘the one lifelike solution to deal with superior AI bot swarms taking up’ although, you realize, every little thing he’s executed to this point has but to make any kind of tangible affect on Twitter’s bot account issues. Bots comprise roughly 5% of the platform’s 330 million customers, however account for greater than 20% of precise tweets within the US. Oh, and he’s eliminating 2-factor authentication for non-paying customers too, which goes to additional worsen the location’s safety points.

Beginning April 15th, solely verified accounts can be eligible to be in For You suggestions.The is the one lifelike solution to deal with superior AI bot swarms taking up. It’s in any other case a hopeless dropping battle.Voting in polls would require verification for similar cause.March 27, 2023

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One other a part of the issue is that regardless of always worsening the free consumer expertise, Twitter Blue is estimated to have made the corporate simply $11 million (opens in new tab) from cellular customers since its mushy relaunch after Elon took the reins. That appears like loads, however it’s a comically small drop within the bucket for a social media big like Twitter. Nonetheless, Elon claimed within the aforementioned valuation memo that he believes the corporate can be worthwhile as early as subsequent quarter.

I’m placing on my finest impression of Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Ragnarok to say “will it, although?” – Twitter remains to be burning cash regardless of slashing employees counts (which ends up in hassle like this) and is embroiled in a laundry listing of authorized disputes that are little question costing it a ton of money. To compound the problems additional, a lot of these circumstances are particularly Twitter being sued over nonpayment of every little thing from contracted wages to hire owed to, uh, the British royal household. Yup, you learn that proper.

Now, as a enjoyable (learn: horrifyingly dystopian) little thought train, let’s contextualize Elon’s huge losses by taking a little bit take a look at a number of the issues he might’ve spent that wasted $24 billion on as a substitute:

• 21,838,034 iPhone 14 Professional Max items
• 120,000 copies of the unique 1999 shiny Charizard Pokemon card
• 48 working replicas of Jeff Bezos’ 417-foot superyacht
• 14 NASA area shuttles
• No less than 2 extra Tesla gigafactories
• Housing each homeless individual within the USA for 3 full years
• And at last, all the nation of Montenegro – and with money to spare, because the tiny European nation is estimated to be value simply over $17 billion (opens in new tab) as of 2023. Maybe Elon might’ve purchased Barbados (opens in new tab) too.