I’ve been “quiet quitting” Twitter for many years now. I got on it in 2008 and after the first 6 years or so, the service was just never nearly as appealing. Personally, the net value the service brings to my life has gone lower and lower these last few years. There’s some good stuff on it but you’re better off reading newspapers, books or watching TV.
I can see why a lot of established tech people and VCs in a select few ecosystems probably disagree — many of their peers have been active on here throughout and they echo sentiments to each other in these little bubbles and that probably makes them feel validated. But if you’re an outsider like myself, you’re basically just ranting to yourself publicly. You’d think that makes you feel good, even liberated somehow.. but it’s an illusion. I think the value it adds to your life skews towards zero, or net negative in many cases.
And if you’re non-tech / VC but influential, then Twitter is undoubtedly a daily hazard for you. One wrong tweet and all hell can break loose. Having that kind of risk in your career is so unnecessary. It makes no sense.
Longer form blogging is a much more thoughtful, healthy and intelligent use of your time & effort. Even if nobody is reading it, it brings clarity of thought.
Email has a much higher ROI for building your network or as a distribution platform. Some Substack and newsletter authors make millions of dollars every year. How much do successful tweeters make? I think my guess is good as anybody’s and everyone knows what the answer is.
The most enjoyable parts of Twitter are parody and meme accounts. But there’s just a handful of them. And they’re certainly not making any significant money from Twitter.
So there’s a lot of unbundling that can happen I think. And it’ll happen I think in the form of new networks or added content to existing networks. I think Jack Dorsey realized this to an extent. His idea of open-sourcing Twitter is actually not so bad.
However, the lofty goals that Elon Musk has set are at this point I feel just not possible to achieve with this service. He perhaps realized this and tried to back out of the deal but it was too late. A $44bn write off is going to be a big one for the books, but he should be able to sell it for parts. He’s not an idiot. It wasn’t sheer luck that made him the richest individual on the planet.
It’s best to leave the party before only the hosts are left. (And in this case, the original hosts had left more than a minute ago). So I will be sneaking out the door to spend my time in things that have higher ROI. I wish Elon Musk the best of luck trying to revive this party that feels like it was already over well before he arrived.
✌🏾 Twitter.