The influentials backfilling I think will be fine. Even with the terrible optics that this photo is attempting to counterprogram, enough people will be desperate or just morbidly curious enough. This photo is designed to recruit them. It’s like a college brochure stock photo.
Conversation
It’s the essentials that are the problem. They will bring opinionated design ideas that will disruptively alter the DNA of twitter’s core. They will generally be industry veterans (don’t forget this is a big, scaled, live-ops company), often with fuck-you money already banked.
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They will have no good reason to put up with bs. They will be in roles with exposure to Wrath of Elon or any pitbull CEO he installs to deliver “hardcore intense long hours” leadership. Any equity participation for a future exit is a higher-risk bet than unencumbered new startup.
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All this while the user base is *also* churning hard, and in that case, the highly engaged “influentials” user base churning the most (there are probably no “essentials” among users clearly if even POTUSes can be booted). It’s social media equivalent of CNN morphing into Fox.
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“Referendum on GenX tech values” is probably correct. Good frame. It’s a race between a declining demographic and profitability trying to beat a bad balance sheet. It’s a good thing Elon has declared he doesn’t care about profits. twitter.com/octal/status/1
This Tweet is unavailable.
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I’m reminded of the stark analysis of newspaper futures in Phil Meyer’s classic The Vanishing Newspaper. Data showed the decline through 80s/90s (started pre internet) was lockstep with generational shift.
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I read this while I was doing a study at Xerox ~2009 on whether there was a meaningful print-on-demand newspaper market. Talked to a bunch of veteran journalists, pro publica and knight people, Meyer, and others. But print was already in Silents/boomers endgame.
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5 possible outcomes here
1. Standard playbook PE turnaround. Shrink but get profitable in same business, pay off investment slowly
2. Meh lumpenapp (X-app= wechat+PayPal, compete with substack/YouTube/tiktok)
3. Creative leap
4. Early face-saving divestment
5. Slow death
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I guess one reason I’m sticking around is I’m 48 and GenX. I’d rather retire than try to reinvent myself on TikTok.
Getting people like me to stick around isn’t worth much. We’re near-future AARP, being groomed to vote for President Ivanka while ranting on twitter in 2040.
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GenZ is already mostly elsewhere. I guess you could chase them with post-tiktok video offerings.
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read image description
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I now think of my own willingness to adopt or stick around a product as a bad sign. Sorry Farcaster; fact that I’m on but my 18y old nephew is not is a yellow flag
It’s not that my life is over, but it’s past the point where riding tech waves is the key to what’s left of it
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Perhaps you've become (maybe we all do eventually) one of those "harbinger of failure" customers
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The avg. 18 year old doesn't want to be on an intellectual public square text-based social network vs. something that's more visual media-oriented .
I'm building the network that I want to use every day and will see where it goes from there.
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I’m in the same boat but my subculture depends on where the gen Z folks go—there’s still not a clear target for where the gen Z furries are taking us so we’re just sitting here for now






