Comment by nomilk
3 days ago
Banning PG was a mistake [0]
> [George Hotz] I'm upset when I see PG get banned for mentioning mastodon
> [Elon] yeah, that was a mistake
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkNkSQ42jg4&t=42m14s
Meta note: it's worth listening to this historical 'space' in full (well, the first ~1h while Elon's on). The meta-pattern becomes obvious: people (esp nay-sayers) are outraged about ~20 different issues, X since addressed most of them, but the outrage-mob moved on to new issues, X will address them, and so on.
The point: the ragey mob is never satified, X moves very quickly (partly due to it's willingness to try things, and occasionally fail in the short term) but this strategy is long-term optimal.
counter point: x active usage is down. the “ragey mob” were engaged users who have since left, along with the user growth and MAU.
Depending on the metric (e.g. MAU, DAU, web impressions etc) X is generally down about 3-20% since Elon's takeover. Seems fair to say X is a 'break even' investment at best.
It will be extremely interesting to re-visit this thread in 10 years. X is currently a gateway for promoting Grok (with 11-figure DAU potential), and X is acquiring financial licences in US states, with a view to becoming an 'everything app' (something which the East seems to have - in the forms of wechat, Grab - but the West weirdly doesn't). If X can be the West's first 'everything app'.. trillion+ dollar valuation isn't out of the question.
How exciting…