Elon Musk is a bully
As all billionaires are. Along with unempathetic sociopathic psychopaths.
I can’t fathom having the power to save our at least change millions of lives…but instead choose to leech more wealth from the people that need it most. And systematically make the world worse. It’s a sickness.
There are no good billionaires.
I would build SO much low income, homeless, and transition housing. I would also start my own line of bamboo products and packaging to replace plastic.
The most important part of what you said is that you’d build “SO much” housing. If we’d just let the free market build all the housing it wants without letting NIMBYs get in the way, we’d have largely solved the housing crisis.
Except we already have more houses than there are homeless people. The problem is the empty houses have ridiculous price tags due to corporate landlords and landlords refusing the sell and only rent (also at ridiculous prices)
Vacancy rates in the places where people actually want to live are really low. Besides, are people not allowed to have vacation homes?
Market price is a function of supply and demand. We’ve been under building housing for years.
Alright but life never promised anyone these luxuries. I don’t give a fuck if someone can’t have a vacation home because it means more people without one can have one. People act like freedom to do whatever the hell they want no matter how negatively it effects everyone else is their universal right. The Universe doesn’t give a fuck about your summer home, nature doesn’t give a fuck that you worked hard to get it. It will all be swallowed all the same if our main goal still is not perpetual survival. That may be authoritarian, but it is also the truth. We never left the game of survival we just plastered concrete and asphalt on top of it and pretended we were removed.
I mean, one can build it NITBY, just with functioning public transport to TBY, so that it could function. There’s plenty of available space on the planet.
Then you’d go bankrupt and stop supporting your “so much” housing, unless you’d gift it to those people, not give as a temporary service.
Bamboo - a nice idea. Actually I’m not sure it’s that hard for you to do even now. I’m serious, if you know the pipeline, then try to evaluate how much a start would cost (for it to be barely profitable). You need, well, bamboo itself (grows like a virus, shouldn’t be a problem), and on the process of making stuff from bamboo I’m not sure (I think it involves making some kind of pulp and then pressure?..), but humans do this kind of thing. Should probably start with dishes and cups.
That may be the most tautological sentence I’ve ever read.
Automated teller ATM machine 👍
Personal Identification PIN Number 👍
Well yeah. If you weren’t sociopathic, you wouldn’t be holding onto all of your money, but would instead be trying to help people with it.
Being a billionaire means having the means to help millions of people, and deciding to instead keep all that money for yourself.
Being a billionaire means using it to acquire more money which provides more power which provides more control. Shit floats to the top.
Not necessarily. It may be optimization between what you give now and what you keep for later to make more, with the total effect on others’ well-being being the criterion. I mean, theoretically.
If you make a dime and immediately give it away randomly, you are making a worse decision than keeping it by this criterion. If you immediately give it away not randomly, but to somebody you think needs it, still possibly worse because you could try and make much more and then, say, open a pharmaceutical company.
Say, with cattle you’d use some for meat and some to make more cattle to feed more people. You wouldn’t just slaughter the whole herd for meat. It’s worse.
You can’t be sociopathic and psychopathic - they’re different points on the same (ASPD) spectrum. Please learn what words mean before throwing them around.
Elon is as a Elon does
According to Hwang, the company now formerly known as Twitter did offer “an alternative handle with the history of the @x account” so that his original account, complete with its posts and followers, could live on and continue to be used.
What short, catchy username did Musk’s company change Hwang’s handle to? @x12345678998765.
You can’t make this shit up. God damn!
that sounds like what an idiot would have for a password.
Quick someone check if it’s Elons password!
Nah his password would definitely include an “42069” in it.
Did you try
xXx42069NoScopexXx?
So you are saying one could log into @x with that…
It’s the same password I have on my luggage!
Who the hell downvoted an Airplane! quote?
Maybe someone who hasn’t see Airplane.
I refuse to believe there are people like that. I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.
However, Hwang tells me, he was also offered a new handle of his choice – as long as it’s available. He just hasn’t picked one yet.
He should ask for @twitter.
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“as long as it’s available” is as good as nothing imho.
We’ll a lot of people have left
Since his handle is being taken against his will, he should get to take someone else’s handle against their will. Then let it be a chain reaction.
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Let’s be real now. That name is temporary until he chooses his new one. Read the whole article. It’s rediculous enough without making things seem even worse.
But look at that username. It definitely not randomly generated. Someone at Twitter pick that new name. They just give someone with the shortest username possible (1 character) the longest possible username (15 characters), and they do so by pressing the number row back and forth until they hit the username characters size limit. If it’s not a mockery then I don’t know what is.
💩
It’s not mockery, it is the logical thing to do. They don’t want to allocate a username a person would actually want, so naturally they pick the longest possible username, with arbitrary and meaningless contents. Would you have been happier if it was @xloremipsumdolo? @xtemporaryusern? Like what was the right thing for the technician who had to pick the name to do, in your mind?
I thought long and hard about this, and you’re right. If it were me, no matter what the new username is, I’m still going to be mad. But I feel like I’ll be less mad (just a little bit less) if they select completely random username, indicating it’s chosen be an impartial random number generator instead of chosen by someone who in my mind is messing with me (image of Elon Musk laughing at me coming in my mind).
That is absolutely hilarious. They should’ve offered him @twitter in exchange, it would only be fair…
All for the buzz I imagine.
Or for some hyper inflated fragile ego I guess.
Well that’s my guess.
Musk probably wanted to make it @x42069.
What short, catchy username did Musk’s company change Hwang’s handle to? @x12345678998765.
It could have been worse.
They could have named him “X Æ A-12” 😵💫
Kyle!
Shitty social media website does shitty thing and continues enshittification full throttle.
Man…
I was pretty bummed when I heard that Twitter was going to die. There are some cool moments in history that happened on Twitter. It was a hell of a ride, but the writing was on the wall well before Elon bought it. It was time to go.
But not like this.
It deserved a good death. Not to have it’s corpse raped on full display over and over.
A lot of very talented people committed so much time and energy to this. When it launched, it was a novel idea and they really forged some roads in our understanding of how we communicate and receive information.
It was clear at the end that it would never produce the kind of ROI on advertising to make investors happy, and that Nazis had clearly taken over the platform and used it to bastardize journalism further. It was time to go to pasture.
But not like this.
Hopefully its mutilated, humiliated and desiccated corpse will feed the growth of the federated web.
I hope you find peace, sweet prince.
Twitter was profitable before Musk took over.
The purchase itself saddled Twitter with $13 billion in debt. Musk paid $26bn, other investors (including the Saudi prince) together paid $5bn, and the remaining $13bn was a loan Twitter took out to buy itself on their behalf.
The new owners only paid tax on the $31bn they paid, not the $44bn that was paid to shareholders. (Here’s something I’m not sure about: Musk was one of the largest shareholders. Is the $44bn the total value of all shares - does that include Musk’s shares? Did he basically buy shares from himself?)
The interest on that $13bn was comparible to Twitter’s revenue, before Musk started fucking around. Twitter could not afford that debt.
The buyout itself was what killed Twitter. Everything since then has been nothing but a clown show to distract from the fact that was the original intention.
Thank you. I hate it when people say Twitter wasn’t profitable. It was profitable. It just wasn’t an infinite money printing machine like people (investors) wanted. Twitter didn’t need investor money or loans to pay all its bills unlike say Tumblr.
Twitter was the victim of the same financial BS as Toysrus.
I’ve had the impression for a while that Twitter upper management wanted monthly active users on the level of Facebook, Tiktok and other social media. To enrich themselves by way of ad revenue, rather than to create opportunities and experiences for the platform and its users. Then when it became apparent that such a potential opportunity had come and gone (if it was ever there in the first place), they did what was in their minds the next-best thing: They cashed out while they could still find a buyer. Elon’s idiotically freewheeling but nevertheless binding offer was basically their winning lottery ticket, so they held his feet to the fire instead of treating it like the thoughtless shitpost it was.
Wait, that sounds like a leveraged buyout. I overlooked that detail in the news. It changes everything.
I know that some investment firms use leveraged buyouts to drain every bit of money from a company before they chop it up, sell the good bits and let the rest go bankrupt due to the massive debts left in the carcass of the old company. It’s so scummy I wonder why it’s not illegal.
It is a leveraged buyout, yes.
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I’m not saying it wasn’t profitable. It’s a hell of an achievement that it was.
Just that they took on a lot of investment capital and it wasn’t the kind of return that investors were expecting.
Ultimately, the efficacy of social media advertising on the whole is in the decline. The number and types of companies that used to advertise and run their business on Facebook is so different today than it was five years ago, and business are seeing far less return for their budget.
Twitter was riding a knife’s edge (particularly during COVID) and would have to really scramble to stay in the red in the future.
the remaining $13bn was a loan Twitter took out to buy itself on their behalf.
That’s truly some Hollywood-accounting-style bullshit. I couldn’t even imagine the paradoxical mathematics it took to make that happen.
It would be like me paying you to buy a candy bar from me.
there was a time when twitter was the place for internet sensation. if you want to see what’s going around the world, twitter was a great place to visit. movements like #metoo wouldn’t have happened if there was no twitter. sad to see that musk just plays with it like a toy and making it’s credibility to lose everyday and giving it a slow death.
movements like #metoo wouldn’t have happened if there was no twitter.
That’s exactly why Musk is doing what he’s doing.
Indeed, put it out of its misery.
I hate to say it because Fuck Elon, but this is just one of those things you sign away when you agree to the terms of service.
True, but it’s still worth criticizing because of him being so dickish about it. He even renamed the account @x12345678998765.
And he could have gone down the “Mike Row Soft” route and offered the guy some free stuff as compensation. Terms allowing them to do something doesn’t mean they have to be dicks about it.
Exactly! Musk is being an asshole because he can and he likes it. Sure, he has every right to be an asshole just like Jason Aldean has the right to release a racist song. That doesn’t make them free from criticism.
Well aren’t you the social justice cheerleader, please go back to reddit.
Bro you’ve only got 2 comments are both of em are shit talkin’ one dude. Grow up.
Bro you’ve only got 2 comments are both of em are shit talkin’ one dude. Grow up.
.
Blocked.
Wow, I’m actually delighted you have the school grade enthusiasm to take such a drastic action towards your very public shaming. You didn’t even deny anything.
It’s still really petty - Elon is one of the richest guys on earth. Take the username, but send him a Tesla. Invite him to a SpaceX launch.
Well you don’t get rich by giving away 100k cars to everyone…
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Exactly. You get rich by being a dick.
Well I went ahead and did a mastadon. No clue what I am doing, but… Woohoo?
I’m [email protected] there too I guess. Idk
You’d want to include your instance as part of your handle. I know, it’s not as intuitive as a centralized service, but it is a requirement, especially when sharing the name elsewhere. So, your Lemmy account is [email protected]. Folks on lemmy.world don’t need that, but folks on another instance (like me) would. I can get it from clicking your username, but there’s no way to figure it out for a different platform from here.
If you type it like this you’ll get an instance agnostic link (at least on instances v0.18 and above, not necessarily in apps): /u/[email protected].
You can also select from a dropdown box on the website to send a mention, however this link goes to their instance rather than your own: @[email protected]. The code for this is
[.world](https://lemmy.world/u/ChamrsDeluxe), you can type this manually and replace any link text in between the square brackets, so generally[link text](https://userinstance/u/user).The old pre-0.17 instance agnostic links were
[link text](/c/community@instance)or[link text](/u/user@instance), but the new versions will automatically generate without link code:/c/community!community@instance/u/user@instance(does not send a mention)
Also, kbin doesn’t federate properly. You might not even see this comment over there…
That’s all well and good, but I was telling them to include the instance for their mastodon handle, which they’ve gone back and edited to include it now.
Yeah I know. But we’re on lemmy here, so it’s good to know.
Mastodon might not do that sort of thing, and kbin is different again. Tbh I’m surprised you even got my last comment (although it seems like you got it late) as most of the time kbin and lemmy don’t federate properly through threads. For example, I was unable to reply to you on my phone in Jerboa, and on the website it doesn’t work unless I specifically select English as the language.
If I’m reading this right there are two ways to indicate a user including its instance:
/u/username.com@username@example.com
Which one is the recommended one?
The first one will generate a link automatically with no code (on lemmy v0.18 and above, not necessarily in apps - it doesn’t seem to work in Jerboa currently). This link is instance agnostic, meaning the viewer sees a link in their own instance, rather than the
example.cominstance. This means you can send them a DM, or open their comments and reply to them.The second one isn’t enough on its own, it needs to be in the form
[link text](https://example.com/u/user). However, if you start typing@user@example.comon the website, a pop up box will allow you to select the user and generate the link code for you - it will give you[.com](https://example.com/u/user). This version is not agnostic, it takes you to the user’s instance, however it does send a mention to the user’s inbox.Hopefully in a future update they will combine these two, so that an agnostic link will also send a mention, and so the mention link will auto-generate and be agnostic. Right now, one is for linking to a profile you want to interact with, the other is for calling that person into the thread with a mention.
Edit: Just for a little more fun variation, it looks like Jerboa handles the
@user@instancelink as if it were instance agnostic. On the website it opens the user’s instance.
You’re not done yet - you need to sign up on all the instances!! Then you’ll really not know what you’re doing!
What short, catchy username did Musk’s company change Hwang’s handle to? @x12345678998765.
That’s some really !funnyandsad material…
Sounds like someone trying to type a random number on the keyboard, looking at it, and thinking, what ever
It’s not even random, it’s counting 1 to 9 and then down again to 5. Seems like even less effort lol. It’s either patronising in a show off kind of way or just dumb. Either way… just wow.
As much as this sucks, this person has no rights to their name and never did. Stop using the platform and giving it attention!
Yeah, it’s not like they ever bought that name from Twitter so there’s no real argument that they actually own it, even if they’d ever bought the checkmark BS.
Money and a rename would have been a goodwill gesture, and expecting any goodwill from this version of twitter is insanity.
I don’t think anyone is saying they are owed money. But just taking the handle with nothing in return is really not nice.
They could at least give the guy like Twitter Blue for life or whatever the heck premium is called now.
Haha, me calling it dumb to think they’d be owed money is getting people super angry.
Being downvoted is not indicative of voters’ anger. It’s simply showing they don’t agree with you.
Pulling the victim card is revealing a shit-ton about you tho.
I see why people use downvoting this way, especially since that was the norm on reddit which a good portion of the base fled from, I find the same issue I had with downvotes on reddit to apply here as well though. I try to advocate down votes to be not out of personal opinion, but a reflection that the content is either useless or harmful to the existing conversation. This allows posts that are actually useful and contribute to the discussion to exist even if they are unpopular to peoples opinion. Just because you don’t like the post, doesn’t mean the post isn’t true or useful, which is why I find that form of downvoting ideology to be harmful overall.
That being said, I would find the parent comment you replied to as constructive to the conversation…Up until they started egging people on with “is getting people super angry” I wouldn’t call this being downvoted for not agreeing, I would call it being downvoted for not being constructive to the post at hand(as there’s no need to actively try to get people to rage at you with a post like that)
So what do users not agree to in my post but do with in this?
Also, what a fucking Reddit thing to do.
Crying reddit croc tears in no way helps your cause.
I don’t have a “cause”. But I see that you have no answer.
Musk is an overpaid idiot, but anyone has to expect not to have any real rights on any website.
More X-crement. Stop wasting your time on this shit site.
Imagine how amazing the PR would have been if the title had been: “User gets spectator seating for a SpaceX launch in return for lost handle”
Instead he got a “fuck you” 🤷
I can hear his theme song now…
X gon’ take it from ya (uh), he gon’ take it from ya X gon’ take it from ya, he gon’ take it from ya
First we gonna rock, then we gonna roll Then we let it pop, go, let it go
Another example of Musk being a cunt, what a surprise
I doubt X has much money to spare to give to people considering how they hemorrhage money.
Clearly you don’t realize how much a billion dollars really is then.
He could literally lose 99% of his wealth and still be islands buying rich.
Elon is not Twitter/X. Sure, he could pump all his personal money into it and keep it afloat indefinitely and I’m sure he’s putting in personal money… but at the end of the day they’re separate entities.
You want a business to survive on its own funding. If I were him I would try to put in as little personal money as possible. Which is why we’re seeing stuff like them getting evicted from office spaces. He doesn’t want to just burn money.
Thank you for this!
I dislike Musk as much as the next person, but most of the hate of Musk & Twitter/X fails to make the distinction that they are not the same thing. At this point, any additional capital injected into X is throwing good money after really bad money.
Elon is not Twitter but Twitter is Elon. It used to be a public company, but now it is his personal property. There is no difference between Elon losing a dollar and Twitter losing a dollar. If he can use his personal resources to manipulate Twitter’s market value or appeal to advertises, he can and will because anything else is leaving money on the table. They are not separate entities.
