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Elon Musk admits X 'may fail, as so many have predicted'
(www.businessinsider.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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The horrific opportunity cost inherent to having a billionaire class.
Guillotine noises intensify
The nice thing about our economic system is that value is rarely completely destroyed, the money he paid for Twitter didn't cease to exist, it went to former Twitter shareholders.
They may be using it in more productive ways than he ever would.
They use it to reinvest and hoard. Because that's what the investor class does, which is why they're useless.
broken window fallacy
Just to add a little explanation to those who don't get it: the man-hours spent by people working for then Twitter now X as well as resources used, uktimatelly for producing no wealth, could've instead been spent for something that did produce wealth.
Same amount of input money either way, but one produces wealth (in the economic sense of the word rather than merelly monetary) and the other just wastes manpower and resources.
There has been value generated by Twitter that will outlive it though.
They established and refined an interface that other ventures like blue sky and mastodon are utilizing, and they delivered open source frameworks like Bootstrap will long outlive Twitter, and have brought value to the broader web development ecosystem.
I was just explaning the concept of a "broke window falacy" (funilly enough without using the actual example that gave the name to it) and how work merelly being done is not a gain and can actually be a loss because of the opportunity cost (i.e. the people and the resources could otherwise have been used elsewhere and actually produce something of worth).
Also I was just thinking about the Musk-era Twitter rather than the entire Twitter timeline.
As you correctly point out, Bootstrap is something of worth (I would be more hesitant on the "interface" side, as I worked in web interfaces back when they started and that stuff is just derivative and not especially great).
Consider whether Twitter was stifling some other growth. If you buy and burn down an advertising billboard, letting light into a market garden--perhaps that is beneficial.
Definitely prefer the vanity projects of the past. Libraries, city halls etc
Yeah. X makes various things named "Rockafeller" seem downright "not a dumpster fire" in contrast.
aah, Social Media in a nutshell.
You make a great point. Let's spend hours and hours discussing it to death here. ;)
The money isn't gone, it's just changed hands
Money ain't got no owners. Only spenders.
It doesn't work that way. Almost all of the money in the world is debt owed to someone else. Very few things are bought with cash. It is really credit on credit on credit on credit. And all of that depends on trust. My company gets product from your company today with the promise to pay in a month, your company does the same...
When events like the Twitter buyout and burn happen it weakens trust. Which weakens credit. Which means the virtual money is gone.
Could have just bought land in Kentucky and sat on it. Made a nature preserve. Give the beavers and deer a place to chill for a century or more. Pretty lazy way to do charity but it still would have been better.
Hyperloop, boring tunnels, sending cars to space, etc
Stop me when you've heard enough to believe this guy has obvious disdain for all of us.