There are endless explanations as to why someone may want to shoot Twitter down, but the most obvious one is competition looking to further consolidate the social Web. Twitter lived on the web as an OVNI: unlike Facebook which turned into Meta and Google which turned into Alphabet, Twitter has not developed into a social juggernaut. It was just Twitter. All the acquisitions of the company led to mergers within the Twitter product, making it essentially a one-product group.
Why would Elon Musk step in and kill Twitter? That remains an enigma and a fun game of hypothesis. But sure enough, Musk’s intention has been to pull the plug on Twitter, that is undeniable. And, on many levels, it resembles Murdoch’s murder on Myspace.
Here is a little step-by-step tutorial of the strategy applied by Musk to kill Twitter:
Enter stage in a way that clearly shows Twitter is up for grabs (rich dude buys it for $4 billion as a trophy, with no plans).
Become Myspace’s Tom, make an obvious statement that you are turning the social network into your own playground. Push your own tweets and other fake profiles’ tweets on everyone’s timelines to dominate the arena.
Then become Myspace’s Murdoch, engage in incomprehensible changes and use self-righteousness to justify yourself.
Fire everyone, or almost everyone, send the message that no further development is planned.
Remove verified accounts to instill major trust issues with the social network. That will make advertisers disappear faster than a good Houdini trick.
Kill automation. Twitter was born and raised through automated accounts. In the early days, the Twitter API was completely open and allowed all kinds of automated apps. This helped Twitter present excellent growth numbers and gain investors’ trust. Removing automation is like removing Twitter’s DNA from Twitter.
Make users pay (why?) or let them feel like freemium junk.
Apply ridiculous usage limits to make the feeding experience extremely limited and unattractive.
Pick the most awful name, one that completely breaks the Twitter brand. Make it unclear, undefined, and maybe a little misleading (X.com sounds like a porn king’s domain name). Remember Myspace’s new “My_____” brand name before the service went extinct ? “X” also sounds like “ex”, probably an idea from Musk’s dry humor.
Pick a terrible, terrible logo, to really accentuate the social network’s loss of style and purpose. No companies will ever advertise a social profile with an “X” social icon.
Completely blow PR diplomacy into pieces.
Elon Musk probably had good reasons to kill Twitter. The victims are the users who poured their hearts out for years building their profiles, just to see it trashed overnight. One may wonder if there should exist a free social network, Wikipedia-style (free and donations-funded) that could die only if their users wish to kill it, and not just because of biz and politics. However evil Musk’s plan was, one can only admit that it was very, very efficient. Expect more Meta in your Tesla.