Why Twitter's death matters
Elon Musk's apparent determination to destroy his own company should be a wake-up call to us all.
If you’re reading this newsletter there’s a very good chance that you follow me on Twitter.
I first joined the site around 14 years ago, when I was starting out in journalism, and it has been at the centre of pretty much everything I have done in my career since.
I received my first commissions as a freelancer, secured my first media appearances and got my first full time job, all as a result of my presence on that site.
Over time it has become an essential part of my work, with everything from identifying sources, to promoting my work, done largely through the platform.
As a result I have built up a relatively big following. At the time of writing I have around 126,000 Twitter followers and had been, until Musk’s calamitous acquisition of the site, been gaining between 4,000-8,000 additional followers every month.
And despite its reputation as a so-called ‘hell-site’ I have always felt quite defensive of it. When I first entered journalism I had no connections in the industry and few ideas of how to get any. Yet over the years I have built up a fairly extensive network of connections, in large part, through Twitter. My followers now include leading journalists, senior politicians and public figures and even some of my childhood heroes. Many of them I have even gone onto know in real life. Much of this simply would not have been possible had I not signed up for an account back in 2008.
Soon it could all be over. Musk’s catastrophic leadership is already destroying the site’s reputation, and soon the business itself could go under too. A platform, which has helped trigger political uprisings and create entirely new industries, could soon fall victim to the seemingly deliberate self-sabotage of its new owner.
It is no use pretending this doesn’t matter. Twitter has provided a platform for many thousands of people who might otherwise never have found one. It has allowed victims to become whistleblowers, activists to fight for their freedoms and the rest of us to have an awful lot of fun.
It has also helped shape the way we see the world. If the news is the first draft of history, then Twitter is the notebook we’ve used to sketch the draft. If the site does now go under, then future historians will lose an incredibly important record of the times we are all living through.
Of course nothing lasts forever and if Twitter does die then other platforms will emerge that supersede it. I have already set up a profile over at Mastodon. Other platforms may also emerge to take Twitter’s place. Alternatively Musk may decide that the game is not worth the candle, and simply sell it on at a loss to someone else who actually knows what they’re doing.
But whatever happens, the golden era of Twitter is surely now over. In a period in which dozens of social media platforms have been born, Twitter was the only one that I, and many other people, ever had a real connection with. The events of the past few weeks have surely broken that connection.
A failed model
None of this is to say that Twitter is perfect. For all its many positives, the company has done too little to tackle abuse and harassment and has failed to find ways of weeding out the most toxic behaviour on the site.
It has also failed to find a way to make its own business sustainable. Despite hosting some of the most influential users of any social media platform, it has barely even tried to allow those users to monetise their presence.
I have never really understood why this is. Most other social media platforms - from Instagram to Youtube - have clear ways of rewarding the people who create content for them. If I had over a hundred thousand followers on most other social media platforms then I would already be earning significant revenue from my presence there. Yet Twitter has never offered me any similar way to be rewarded for the content I provide. Instead Elon Musk is now proposing that I should pay him for the privilege of providing him with that content.
Compare this to Substack, which is a much smaller platform, but which makes it incredibly easy for writers to be rewarded for their work. In the past month alone, the company has rolled out a whole series of well-designed new tools which make it easier for writers to build up a following and to encourage their readers to pay for their work. Around 40% of new subscriptions to this newsletter now come from readers discovering it through Substack itself. And by helping us all to grow our publications in this way, they are also helping grow their own company too. As a result, using Substack feels like a genuine partnership between the users and its owners. By contrast, remaining on Twitter increasingly feels like an abusive relationship.
What can we do about it?
Whatever you may think of Twitter, it is surely absurd that the future of what has essentially become an essential public utility should now be in the hands of one eccentric and apparently malicious billionaire.
For this reason it is more important than ever that we all help to create and support new platforms and outlets which are free from the whims of the Musks of this world.
Mastodon may be one such outlet. This newsletter is another. Since starting this publication a year ago, I have been overwhelmed by the sheer number of people who have chosen to follow and support it. And thanks to that support I have been able to build a new and independent outlet for my work, as well as building a new community among my readers.
When we held our first Substack chat last weekend, it felt to me like the sort of rewarding and civilised community discussion that used to happen in the early days of blogging and Twitter itself.
In the coming months I hope to build upon that, with news of some very exciting plans coming soon.
If you would like to be a part of this, then do please sign up for a full subscription below. Thank you for all of your support.
I agree. Twitter has given me followers and people who I enjoy following that I would never have met in other ways. It's an important part of my political life. But if Elon creates a void, something else will fill it. If it's Mastodon - fine, but it could be something else as yet unknown. It's too valuable a contribution to public life now to be just forgotten and ignored.
A year ago I had not heard of you either, but since then I have learned a lot from you and enjoy the ability to interact, even if it's only briefly. This is the future of connections. Not printed papers.
Elon is making such a hash of all this I can't believe it's not due to a pre-ordained plan. Watch and wait is my plan right now. He has to be up to something. As does Jack Dawsey.
From the earliest days, Jack and Evan had no idea what they were doing from a business model standpoint. It was obvious back then that a subscription model was the way to go for Twitter to be sustainable but heh - they were addicted to ad sales.
Along the way, they successfully alienated developers who were making Twitter way better than they could have dreamed by cutting off access via essential API’s. Not clever.
Now we have Elon the Man Child who does understand the model but who realises he’s paid at least 2x what Twitter is worth in late 2022.
So now Elon is flailing around and in the process, pissing off the people who could keep it afloat while the business model transitioned. He’s just lost three execs who were calming as buyer nerves. Great move eh?
It’s clear that Elon is out of control so yeah - it’s likely Twitter will die but then it’s ruin was baked in a long time ago.
Fear not though because a better network will emerge. They always do and as we dive into a recession, now is a golden opportunity for such a service to emerge.