We'll soon be implementing some changes in our effort to reduce spam in Direct Messages. Unverified accounts will have daily limits on the number of DMs they can send. Subscribe today to send more messages
https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1682501248334061572
This is an awesome thing, it encourages people up get off their site
I think you're giving "normal people" way too much credit.
Ah yes, it’s “to fight spam” and not at all an attempt to cut costs of the free users.
Just keep squeezing Elon. Blood will come out of that stone soon enough I just know it!!
This won't do anything to cut any costs.
This is all about enshittifying the free experience to push those on the edge to finally bite the bullet and start paying.
Kinda pointless when most of the spam I encounter in general is from verified accounts. Love that doucheblock extension, and Blue Blocker for automuting accounts that promote tweets.
well I just checked the twitter replies and am now adding “sugar daddy”, “sugar momma” and “sugar baby” to doucheblock. They can’t even handle spam replies to the support account.
I remember the conspiracy theory that was going on in the right wing circles of the internet a few years ago, where people like Tim Pool were saying that the blue checkmark was an attempt from Twitter to create a "privileged class on Twitter"...
All of those people are the ones that Elon's been pandering so hard to and look at Twitter now.
Why is it with these people, that them who cry wolf so often, also turns out to be the wolves so often?
It seems crazy that Twitter is actively taking steps to become a worse social media company. Back when I was a kid, companies were supposed to be these well thought out, highly methodical entities that would only make the most optimal moves. I suppose it's 2023 now though.
Look up enshittitication, it's an interesting rabbit hole.
Basically, the idea is that there is a path companies go along where they first please users to build a user base, once you are bound to a platform and don't want to leave (because "everyone" is there) they instead start to shift towards pleasing advertisers until they also feel trapped (because "everyone" advertises there). The final move is trying to squeeze as much as possible out of all these trapped people and companies. It's not just social media, although this of course makes it most obvious at least for a trapped user base. But this also applies for any other big thing that "evryone" uses.
"Enshittification" isn't a rabbit hole, it's a term made up by a pretty hacky young adult sci-fi author like a few months ago for behavior that has been happening and documented in capitalism for at least a century.
Putting a name on a century-old concept isn't the worst idea because now we can easily refer to it when it happens once again. And yes, the old age of that problem is why I consider it a bit of a rabit-hole. It's not just something Twitter does now or that tech companies do now because they copy from each other. It's a quite old concept you'll hear about again and again and can read up on quite a bit, if you really are interested into more than the basic concept or why companies keep trying even though the outcome does not always see positive (from an outside, users perspective).
That sci-fi author is 52 "young" already, has spent like 25 years writing and active about the evolution of the Internet and how it impacts personal rights, so I'd give him the right to coin a new term for an old concept.
It doesn't prevent anyone from calling it:
...or whatever other set of words doesn't elicit a negative connotation in the business world at the particular moment in time.
This looks more like trining to make it run in a stolen raspberry pi in Elon’s basement than trining to extract value.
Let’s be real, there is no value left to extract.
I didn't want to say that Twitters execution of it is perfect, it's just why Elon comes up with all these seemingly insane ideas. He has a huge userbase that won't leave, he had advertisers who he thought wouldn't want to leave and now he's trying to squeeze. The problem is that he obviously didn't have his grasp as tightly around the advertisers as he thought, which is why step 3 of Enshittitication entirely fails, at least from what is known to us. The idea is to keep everyone kind of hostage while you squeeze and while it seems to work with a huge chunk of the userbase, a bigger portion of the advertisers simply move on.
It’s not that huge of a userbase. Pinterest is bigger. Twitter just have a disproportionate amount of celebrities, politicians and journalists addicted to the instant feedback and drama.
Elon is hooked and high on his own supply, so he seems incapable of understand what Twitter actually IS for most users and that “ego boosting machine for the rich and famous” is not a business plan.
Enshitification implies a degree of planning and success that he seems incapable of right now. And you can’t jump to step three without achieving steps one and two. Never good for (most of) the users, never good for the advertisers. Nothing to squeeze.
I mean, it has gone to shit, but it doesn’t seem intentional. Even in the best of circumstances these changes would not be better for the bottom line than just doing nothing.
Even more interesting is that Reddit is taking a look at it and saying huh that looks good I'll have the same thing
Ah yes, because spammers clearly can't afford 8 bucks a month
Spammers definitely can't afford creating 1000 accounts and paying 0 bucks a month... /s
This will have an impact on journalists who use Twitter to get tips for reporting. Seen some who were concerned this would happen
Also many companies provide tech support via Twitter (e.g. PayPal).
I also wanted to add that ZSSK (Slovakian state-owned passenger train company) uses Twitter for reporting extraordinary events like trains being very late, cancelled, alternative bus transport (which can be pretty important as buses can't always get to each station), etc., but checking zssk.sk I noticed they switched from Twitter to Mastodon after these recent events.
I had a problem with my family account on Spotify and my options for asking for support were twitter dms or some meta stuff (Facebook dms?)
I was 🤏🏻 this close to cancel my account right there, but my partner still has social media accounts, so they solved it in my name.
Get a freaking email inbox…
Good thing they switched, want others to follow. From what i got especcially people in eurobean countries are hopping on mastodon
I'm more concerned with "journalists who use Twitter to get tips for reporting".
Like, isn't a journalist supposed to contrast and verify information? Not just spin some random tips from Twitter?
A tip isn't a story in itself, it's a suggestion of where to start looking for one. "Hey, I'm off the record here, but some shady shit is going down at my job and you might want to fire off a Freedom of Information request for x, y and z or talk to a and b" is a pretty good tip.
Guess you're right, I just find it weird for anyone to leave a worthwhile tip over an unencrypted third party company's messaging. It's like "I'm off the record... but I don't really care who hears me say it".
More ideas for Spez to use on Reddit.
"in our effort to reduce spam"
... Sure... That's the reason.....
I like how social media companies are starting to embrace the Fediverse.
Does anyone even use Twitter for anything other than dumb ass politics and seeing free nudes of their favorite e-thot anymore? I don’t think I’ve seen anything entertaining on there in years.
Many absolutely cracked artists post on Twitter and nowhere else, that's the only reason I've ever used it.
I have a list on there with National Geographic and other accounts that only post interesting things, barely any political stuff. Space and other photography. Trolls don’t appear much there.
Probably the only reason I still open it now and then.
I post my photos there because I reach a significantly wider audience on twitter than instagram. Zero politics on my feed
it used to be where i would message my girlfriend (i dont know why twitter thats just how it ended up), but after a few years we made the switch to discord (for now) due to the incoming limits
Well, it's time for their users to consider moving to mastodon / fediverse
Somebody is getting real desperate over there.
Yeah that's super fucked up. Who the hell thinks this shit is a good idea. I'm so tired.
Nice, putting existing features behind paywalls..
What's the limit? As long as it's high I can see this as decent anti spam idea.
It'd make for a good anti-spam measure if there was a limit to the number of DMs users could send to other people who don't follow them back. It'd mean people can still use Twitter DMs like a normal messaging service (which isn't something I care for, but I know some people use it like that).
As it is, it just feels similar to the whole "rate limiting the number of tweets people can view per day" thing, where they're taking the most obvious route to reducing bandwidth usage by restricting users.
Probably whatever number Elon arbitrarily decides he thinks maximizes the conversion rate to premium.
In that case, it'll definitely be 69 for new accounts and 420 for established accounts. He's predictable.
At this point, who even cares? Are there still people on Twitter? Just move on and use something else.
Or don't. The whole concept of Twitter is just noise generation.
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