As a disclaimer, I am a passive hater of Twitter/X ie I don’t like it as a toxic social media platform and haven’t used it but I am not asking the users to move to Threads or some other fediverse alternative as a paid promoter. Also I don’t really intend to keep a strict tab on its status since I get any related major developments from other news outlets and Lemmy.

Seeing how it would be almost a year since the acquisition and all the decisions he took, people were speculating how it would only take a few weeks or months for it to shut down under the leadership of Elon Musk. Even I believed so after I saw the introduction of extremely high fees for API access, verification mark etc, thinking it may be under a financial crisis. But even now I am seeing no signs of it actually coming close to shutting down, as seen by the uninterrupted flux of screenshots/memes/posts of tweets in other social media platforms and its continued use for marketing by other brands and announcements by authorities. I did see some posts by Musk stating his issues with Twitter/X, news of his companies’ stocks going down, and some reputable figures announcing their departure from the platform among some other minor related events, however I feel these aren’t concrete evidences for me to come to a conclusion.

Could anyone clarify what the actual status of Twitter/X is, and if it is actually going to collapse anytime soon as rumored? Am I missing out on something crucial, like some secret funding to keep it alive or all of the rumors of it collapsing being just a huge overreaction by the internet in the end?

  • Sanctus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    86·
    10 months ago

    Platforms don’t die like biological things do. They age and change until their core user base is alienated and the platform is then tucked neatly in a corner to operate in the shadows for the next 30 years.

    • eee
      491·
      10 months ago

      Even digg is still around.

        • cubedsteaks@lemmy.today
          13·
          10 months ago

          thought Livejournal got taken over by Russia around 2008ish?

          I have a hilarious permanent account on LiveJournal cause I wanted to keep it as a time capsule. This was so long ago, I actually mailed a check to Livejournal to pay for my stupid account to be permanent! So of course it’s just sitting there.

      • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        10 months ago

        Yes and no. The domain is still up, but it just a stupid Gawker-like blog. No user posted content. An ad company bought the domain uses it for blog spam.

      • ConstipatedWatson@lemmy.world
        10·
        9 months ago

        I still find Slashdot relevant! It doesn’t feel like it faded into irrelevance, only that it stopped growing (it reached its needed critical mass and that was it)

        Edit: fixed grammar

      • Sagrotan@lemmy.world
        1·
        10 months ago

        Only multiply isn’t anymore. Actually liked it. You could upload music and videos to share. I wonder why it’s closed…

  • zoostation@lemmy.world
    53·
    10 months ago

    Think about it like Craigslist. It will still be around in 5 years but it won’t be culturally relevant like it was. Just like Craigslist is still technically around, but no one talks about it and I don’t know anyone who uses it.

    Twitter is too big to fail completely in the near future, just like Craigslist was.

    • Maxnmy's@lemmy.worldEnglish
      141·
      10 months ago

      That would be fine if my favorite users leave Twitter when it becomes irrelevant. I don’t mind if Twitter stays up as a containment zone for people stupid enough to pay for a blue check mark.

    • cubedsteaks@lemmy.today
      8·
      10 months ago

      Pfft. Craigslist came back into style where I live. There’s even an instagram account dedicated to reposting Missed Connections locally and sometimes I even see those posts getting reposted to tumblr.

  • Chainweasel@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    10 months ago

    AOL and Yahoo are still around, so I don’t think it’ll ever completely disappear. But it’s going to keep becoming more and more irrelevant by the day indefinitely.

  • Astroturfed@lemmy.world
    16·
    10 months ago

    Elon has to much Ego to just let it die. He’ll prop it up and keep it running. It’ll just be like Myspace, slowly becoming forgotten.

  • cecilkorik@lemmy.caEnglish
    13·
    10 months ago

    Musk is the richest man on Earth, give or take a few billion here or there. He can keep it running as long as he wants. It’s nothing but a toy to him. The problem will start when he finally gets bored of it, because he has already broken it to the point that nobody else will want it. He has killed it, it’s just not dead yet as long as he keeps swinging it around and paying its bills. But one day he’ll stop doing that, maybe once he finds a new, shinier toy. We just don’t know when.

    • Zippy@lemmy.world
      7·
      10 months ago

      I don’t think Musk is too happy with this purchase. The price was a significant premium and he knows it. I am not sure if he is cash positive or profitable yet. But if not, putting even more money into an expensive purchase is a hard pill to swallow. Even for someone of his wealth.

      Most of his wealth is on paper. This was a pretty large purchase even by his standard.

  • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
    13·
    10 months ago

    Twitter won’t just up and die, they will slowly fade into obscurity over years. It has already begun with Elon alienating almost everyone but his sycophants and right wing propaganda bots, which causes a slow drain of the moderate users until nothing is left but the worst people, turning it into a personal echo chamber for him and his agenda.

  • Vaggumon
    13·
    10 months ago

    To be blunt, it won’t die until people stop talking about it constantly. But even if it doesn’t die, it’s a useless site to anyone with half a brain.

  • stebo02@sopuli.xyz
    11·
    10 months ago

    It’s only gonna shut down if people finally stop complaining and migrate to another platform.

    Which they’re absolutely not doing right now…

  • Synthead@lemmy.world
    10·
    10 months ago

    Everybody in this thread is guessing.

    Musk bought it, so it’s a private company, now. It’ll stay up as long as he wants it to stay up. How long are you going to keep your Minecraft server online? As long as you want to, right? Same thing, larger scale.

    If he wants to close up shop, he can do that. If he wants to operate it regardless of revenue for the next 10 or 20 years, he can do that, too. He could also sell it, and then the next owners would decide what happens.

  • EvilBit@lemmy.world
    3·
    10 months ago

    There are vested interests who could probably keep it afloat on their own dime alone, and it would be worth every penny if they were forced to do so. It’s a ready made propaganda platform with a built in audience and sympathetic leadership. The only reason they’re trying to make profit with it is because it’s less money out of donor and investor pockets.

  • rufus@discuss.tchncs.de
    3·
    10 months ago

    It’s probably some sensational headline. Twitter is too big to fail. And Elon wants to convert it into his idea of an everything-app. So he will probably not kill it tomorrow either. And there currently isn’t a competitor that is enticing customers away at any alarming rate. So no reason to think it is collapsing.