[mayukh42]

Originally Posted by neeraj0272

it was a race to capture market share and hence at that time free model was adopted by everyone
...
Most striking example of this is Android I think and what an enabler Android has turned out to be.

Market share is a justifiable objective for any business. But the model should be sustainable. You can give early adopter benefits to the users while the app is free, but if you always keep it free, it gradually reduces the appeal to even the users. In many garage sales e.g., if you give away something for free, people are skeptical. But if you charge a nominal amount, suddenly it appears as if you give a damn and are actually willing to have some liabilities.

I wouldn't call Android a role model because it restricts the capabilities of the hardware by running unnecessary services in the background. Not just our data, but we are also "hosting" Google services on our owned hardware.

Also (OT), in software, "free" has 2 meanings. The first is as in free drinks, like where you don't need to pay anything. The second is as in free speech, like it does not have any restrictions. Android is free in only the first sense.

Originally Posted by neeraj0272

Every news paper carry ads. Do you think we can afford news papers without ads? Or TV channels without ads? All sports carry ads.

I don't think this is apples to apples comparison. Traditional media/ cable tv tries to break even with just the sales. Just a few weeks back, Ananda Bazaar Patrika, one of the leading Bengali newspapers, increased their daily prices because newsprint became more expensive after lockdown. They did not hedge it on more pages of ads. The ads that we still get (and there are much more of them now compared to 10 years ago), pay for the pages they come on, and result in "additional" revenue that is supposed to sponsor better quality journalism - which in turn is expected to increase readership. On the internet though, ads are bare necessity to even pay the server bills, that is what concerns me.

[Arun Varma]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Case study question in the MBA class of 2023.

When a CEO or leader of any kind starts believing his own news clippings or as the Americans say drinking his own kool aid then termites are deep inside. Musk may not care but his $44bn but it aint coming back.

+1 on the 'termites' comment!

I think Elon musk is a terrible leader and role model.

I think too many of us believe that money, power, designation, inheritance, etc. automatically correlates to leadership. As John Maxwell says, leadership is not a noun but a verb and it correlates to what the action is and its impact on the greater good and is not a label that one has.

Of course, the argument can be made that Musk is an employer and that in itself correlates to a greater good but his actions over the last month (at least) and the associated words and behavioral indicators show he is just a petty, vengeful, belligerent, erratic, eccentric egomaniac who is just indifferent to the chaos and mess that these erratic and eccentric impulses of his cause to the lives and livelihoods of many.

I feel sad for the folks who are impacted by this man's lunacy!

[Raghu M]

He may be a genius but he is a terrible leader/role model. The whole episode of laying off staff has been handled in the worst way possible. First you just shoo employees away like they are unwelcome and then you reach out to them again after discovering that you did not plan the lay off well and need them for something critical. What next? Once the planned release is done, the employees who are now being asked to come back will be let go in a similar fashion. My opinion, but I have zero respect for this guy. He could have at least taken the Zuckerberg route of sharing a note with the employees and showing some empathy.

[shyampsunder]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

If somebody charged you for IOS you have been scammed. I have been using Apple products since 2009 and I have never ever had to pay for operating system on any of its devices, nor for updates or upgrades.

Jeroen

In that case, can I say "if it is free, you are the product?" to Apple software users?

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by shyampsunder

In that case, can I say "if it is free, you are the product?" to Apple software users?

You can say what you like of course, but I don’t think so. Apple business model and the way they earn their money is totally different from the social network platforms.

In fact Apple has introduced various features to secure its users/customers from giving up data to the social network apps.

Notably Facebook revenues took a plunge when Apple introduced new privacy features. It blocks to a large degree what Facebook can track.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/face...this-year.html

Jeroen

[neeraj0272]

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/...hlYLxXhbw&s=19


So the Man has pinned this tweet
"Far too many corrupt legacy Blue “verification” checkmarks exist, so no choice but to remove legacy Blue in coming months"


But completely removing legacy blue and allowing only paid blue is not a good solution.
Twitter is a genuinely digital town square partly due to this 'Legacy blue' as users are sure that Legacy blue accounts are not bots or fake accounts.
How will users identify genuine accounts from fake accounts? Will Twitter use some kind of verification for each and every account like mobile otp/adhar otp etc?
If supposing some eminent or popular personalities are not interested in using Twitter's commercially paid verification subscription then will they be lost in fake accounts? Also impersonators would be more than willing to pay $8 for using some twitter handles for ulterior motives. How is Twitter going to stop
this without doing some kind of verification?
Elon can't help being a loud mouth but keeping on announcing half baked policies on Twitter is not such a good idea.

[binand]

Originally Posted by neeraj0272

But completely removing legacy blue and allowing only paid blue is not a good solution. Twitter is a genuinely digital town square...

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/...s-fine-warning

This quote from an attorney on Twitter's payroll is interesting in this context:

Elon has shown that his only priority with Twitter users is how to monetize them. I do not believe he cares about the human rights activists. the dissidents, our users in un-monetizable regions, and all the other users who have made Twitter the global town square you have all spent so long building, and we all love.

(The article is talking of Twitter's looming confrontation with the FTC)

Many more top executives left Twitter yesterday (list collated from multiple sources):

chief privacy officer Damien Kieran
chief information security officer Lea Kissner
chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty
head of trust and safety Yoel Roth
de facto head of sales Robin Wheeler
director of software engineering John Deba

In a private chat group we have been sharing screenshots of the new blue tick working as unintended. The best one (the one that best tells us how the future is going to be) is an exchange from blue tick accounts of George W Bush and Tony Blair reminiscing about "killing Iraqis".

[volkman10]

Musk warns of possible bankruptcy, more executives depart.

Musk sent his first emails to employees late Wednesday, warning that "the economic picture ahead is dire." He banned remote work unless he personally approved it

Musk also reportedly told employees bankruptcy was a possibility

more Twitter executives -- Yoel Roth, the company's head of trust and safety, and Robin Wheeler, who led marketing and sales at Twitter -- also resigned

Link

[warrioraks]

Musk and his manipulations!
Every single word he speaks publicly has a hidden agenda. Don’t like the guy one bit. Still would NOT bet against him. He has a history of getting things done which seem insurmountable to most people.
Twitter seems to be at a rock bottom right now. Would predict that in a few years, it would be radically different from what it is today. What unravels is to be seen!

[Red Liner]

Interesting. Declare chapter 11 bankruptcy and escape debt? Use that time to rebuild?

[srini1785]

Originally Posted by Red Liner

Interesting. Declare chapter 11 bankruptcy and escape debt? Use that time to rebuild?

Looks like it. If not Plan A, its definitely in B or C. He tried to run away from the deal and was surprised when he was sued. So he had to agree to it. Now reality has sunk in and he's exploring all options. Looks like the spider got entangled in its own web. Didn't he not pledge his shares at Tesla for this deal?.

[efgritesh]

For some reason I want Musk to fail big time with his twitter adventure. Just imagine if he gets his way out of this situation, what example will it set for future leaders, 50% layoffs to start with for something to be successful.

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

If somebody charged you for IOS you have been scammed. I have been using Apple products since 2009 and I have never ever had to pay for operating system on any of its devices, nor for updates or upgrades.

Jeroen

OT:
It wasn't always like this though. iOS has been free since beginning, but Mac OS wasn't. Till 2013 one had to pay for Mac OS X updates. Mavericks release in 2013 was the first update that was free. I have paid for one those updates back in 2012 for work systems. People mostly updated out of necessity than anything else. Since then Apple (and others too) found new ways to recover the cost through other means (iCloud, Music, App Store etc).

[Turbohead]

Originally Posted by efgritesh

For some reason I want Musk to fail big time with his twitter adventure. Just imagine if he gets his way out of this situation, what example will it set for future leaders, 50% layoffs to start with for something to be successful.

He's failed so many times. This is nothing new. He'll find a new way to get back up and going. His last attempt on SpaceX was literally do or die despite being rejected by his very heroes.

Honestly this is too early to comment. Who knows what he'll end up doing with Twitter? He's more driven by a dream rather than money. If it was money, he would've gone into auto pilot mode to enjoy it all.

So I'd say we should wait and see how this plays out. Only hindsight is 20/20.

[Sebring]

Also, big 'Stars' and 'Starlets' wont pay $8. They're just too snooty. Also, why would they pay?

Originally Posted by neeraj0272

But completely removing legacy blue and allowing only paid blue is not a good solution.