Noah was excited to tell us about a new thing he was working on. “You can use it to send group SMS.”
“That sounds stupid.”
“Look at the logo!”
“That’s even stupider.”
Mike Monteiro on Twitter. I’ve been on it for a decade and I’m pondering on life with and without that service. It’s become so absurd, nasty and plain negative. But sometimes it’s still dope.
Twitter was a technological tool. It should have stayed this way, becoming the WordPress of microblogging.
But there’s a way to possibly make a hundred times more money, and be the star (WordPress is made by a company called Automattic that no one but geeks know about) so Twitter entered the media business with its terrible ad-based, view-based economy. And fucked us all over. This is where we –but mostly you, powerful guys in San Francisco- should have said no, leave the platform and create another one.
Every single thing wrong with Twitter comes from making money from impressions. Abuse? They make Twitter thrive. Awful very important people acting wild? They make Twitter thrive. Harassment? Twitter suddenly has a lot more users, which is great.
More numbers, more money. I don’t know how those executives sleep at night but they live the life I guess? I’m mad that I know what it could have been.