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submitted 1 year ago by sculd@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

The new data — comprehensive and definitive — should put to rest the countervailing narratives over Musk’s management of the app. Under his stewardship, X’s daily user base has declined from an estimated 140 million users to 121 million, with a widening gap between people who check the app daily vs. monthly. X’s remaining daily users are engaged similarly as before. But the pool is shrinking. Apptopia pulls its data from more than 100,000 apps on iOS and Android, along with publicly available sources.

So apparently it lost only 13% of daily users? Thats a smaller number than I thought. Still bad news for Twitter though.

On the other hand, it shows the power of content creators and niche communities. I used less Twitter but cannot delete it because it is literally how I connect with my niche community on there.

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[-] jmd_akbar@aussie.zone 116 points 1 year ago

Umm... Only 13%?

I thought it would have been more...

[-] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 116 points 1 year ago

The increase in the number of bots made up for the rest. The "pay a small fee to get an I'm definitely human sticker" scheme was really popular in the misinformation community.

[-] jmd_akbar@aussie.zone 11 points 1 year ago

Good point...

[-] brainandforce@kbin.social 25 points 1 year ago

Well, the question for me is how many active contributors have left. If those who leave are lurkers, it doesn't really matter. If those who leave are mostly creators, that's a serious problem for the platform.

[-] ExLisper@linux.community 10 points 1 year ago

Actually it makes sense. Look around and check how many people actually take action even if it's inconvenient. Almost no one. For example Amazon and Uber are bad for society in ways that most people understand and are aware of (monopoly, gig economy, killing small businesses, exploiting workers) but what % of society actively avoid them? 5%? Less? So a lot of people will complain that Twitter under Elon is big source of hate speech and misinformation but vast majority will not do anything about it. Probably 5% left for this reason and the rest got annoyed with technical glitches and other changes. Most sheeple will keep visiting.

[-] verdare@beehaw.org 15 points 1 year ago

You had me until the “sheeple” thing.

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[-] Draegur@lemm.ee 77 points 1 year ago

mastodon finally clicked for me and i don't miss twitter at all. sometimes i accidentally load twitter out of force of habit, but immediately recognize how much it sucks now and close it again. Likewise, reddit's dead to me too now. i'm finally starting to feel like decentralized federated social media systems might actually work out.

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[-] TheBlue22 54 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I will not call twitter "x" till the day I die

[-] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I like Xitter, pronounced like xi- in Mandarin Chinese.

[-] curiosityLynx@beehaw.org 19 points 1 year ago

For those who want to know, that makes Xitter sound like halfway between Sitter and Shitter.

As an English speaker you can try to make that sound by saying the Y in YEET and paying close attention to how exactly your tongue is positioned and where in your mouth the air is being constricted. Then try to position your tongue as if you want to say "yeet" or "yes" again, but make an S sound at exactly the same constriction point where you made the Y sound before. If you're successful, it should sound like a hybrid between S and SH to your English ears.

That's how I make it anyway, actual Mandarin speakers might find issue with my explanation.

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[-] EpeeGnome@lemmy.fmhy.net 17 points 1 year ago

It's only ever "the website formerly know as Twitter" to me.

[-] bitcrafter@lemmy.sdf.org 17 points 1 year ago

One of my current favorite alternative is, "X, the web app you access at twitter.com", though given the logo that they chose I'm tempted to start referring to them as X11.

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[-] Plume@beehaw.org 51 points 1 year ago

Rebranding Twitter, one of the most recognizable brand on earth, to "X" is not just shooting yourself in the foot, it's taking a shotgun, aiming at your feet and pulling the trigger.

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[-] Foni@lemm.ee 41 points 1 year ago

Only 13%?? With everything he's going through, it seems very little to me. I think that the turning point would be top-level institutions and politicians changing Mastodon, I think that as long as that does not happen Twitter will still be relevant unfortunately

[-] jsdz@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 year ago

13% may not sound like a lot, but it includes almost all of the 10% who weren't complete idiots.

[-] erez@programming.dev 10 points 1 year ago

So I guess you're still using it?

[-] gyrfalcon@beehaw.org 33 points 1 year ago

Hey, this comment reads like you're just dunking on another user. If that is not what you meant to do, please try to communicate more clearly, and if that is what you meant to do, please refrain while commenting on Beehaw in order to be(e) nice. Thanks!

[-] janguv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 year ago

Considering they said almost all, that's not the gotcha you think it is.

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[-] GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org 37 points 1 year ago

Choosing a single letter name was a marketing disaster. Elon is truly clueless when it comes to people and social. Even worse when X implies Ex anything.

[-] anachronist@midwest.social 21 points 1 year ago

Maybe lengthen it to xxx.com? Think anyone owns that one?

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[-] Four_lights77@lemm.ee 30 points 1 year ago

I don’t think Twitter and Reddit are going to die quickly. They have user bases that they can monetize and bots to flood content. They were shitty enough that enough of left and gave a nice boost to federated platforms. That boost will grow every time those legacy platforms alienate their users by treating them badly. Like windows and Linux.

[-] amju_wolf@pawb.social 10 points 1 year ago

It might never truly "die", but losing 10%+ of active users is massive. Twitter got decimated. Literally.

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[-] Reality_Suit@lemmy.one 26 points 1 year ago

I'm convinced that muskrat did this to destroy a channel of communication. It sure helped me look for more free and open source alternatives. I never used Twitter other than seeing live on the spot events.

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[-] Sina@beehaw.org 25 points 1 year ago

I think it's embarrassing how low that number is. If there are alien civilizations out there, I think humans would be at the bottom of the barrel intelligence wise.

[-] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 23 points 1 year ago

It is probably like 50% of the users, the other 74% are bots that are still on the platform. lol

[-] PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 year ago

i actually thought i would go take a look at threads. when i tried to log in on my PC it told me i had to download the app on my phone before it would let me log in with the account they already apparently created for me.

so i left and havent been back

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[-] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 24 points 1 year ago

I am 100% off social media now. Was never a big fan of Twitter but I'm definitely not paying for it. Zuckbook has been deleted for a decade. When Reddit disabled 3rd party apps, that was the last time I used Reddit.

I miss some of the timely news on specific topics but otherwise nothing's lost.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 18 points 1 year ago

So what's the consensus here? Does social media not include things where people use usernames, or do Reddit and maybe even Lemmy count?

[-] dan@upvote.au 22 points 1 year ago

Reddit and Lemmy are definitely social media. A subreddit or Lemmy community is effectively the same idea as a Facebook group, just with pseudonyms.

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[-] radix@lemm.ee 19 points 1 year ago

What percent did Reddit lose?

[-] Nath@aussie.zone 60 points 1 year ago

I'd be surprised if Reddit hasn't recovered and grown past its size at the point of the exodus. Only about 60,000 came here. 60k isn't even a big sub.

I read somewhere that they were 2% smaller in July. We are no threat to Reddit.

[-] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 38 points 1 year ago

still, enough people have moved over here for Lemmy to finally replace Reddit for my use case (:

[-] Nath@aussie.zone 20 points 1 year ago

Reddit wasn't much bigger than this when I first used it. This feels a lot like Reddit in those days. It was a nicer place than today's Reddit.

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[-] rikudou@lemmings.world 26 points 1 year ago

Didn't a lot of people who create content leave, though? 10k OPs is more important than 10k lurkers for Reddit.

[-] falsem@kbin.social 24 points 1 year ago

I think it's mostly wishful thinking unfortunately

[-] mrbubblesort@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

Meh, whatever. Even if the fediverse were to never get any bigger, it's still a win. This place is big enough to be stable and generate it's own content and culture. All that matters is if you're enjoying it here and actively trying to make it a better place.

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[-] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 year ago

Just as a note, losing 2% (and there’s a lot of different and more meaningful KPIs) is a really big deal if you’re supposed to be growing double digits. The ridiculous valuations built into tech companies is based on massive growth, not current numbers. If you’re expected to grow at 30% and instead you lose 2%, that’s a massive loss. Reddit, last I checked (before the rexit) had come down something like 66% in the estimated IPO valuation. That’s why they freaked out and basically banned third party apps in favor of controlling advertising and subscriptions. They said they want to emulate what Twitter is doing.

If they do go through with their going public, the short side is going to kill them. I think the appeal of Reddit is different than Facebook and that they’re going to do a slow run of Digg and MySpace.

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[-] erwan@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 year ago

Not all leavers join Lemmy, I'm pretty sure some just stopped and found other things to do with their life.

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[-] ijeff@lemdro.id 19 points 1 year ago

A must have browser extension to avoid accidentally adding to their traffic volume: https://github.com/SimonBrazell/nitter-redirect

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[-] detalferous@lemm.ee 18 points 1 year ago

It's certain that of the 120 million that remain, a huge number are bots or spam accounts of some kind. They will be there last "users" to quit the platform. And Elon will be happy to collect ad money to show those bots your ads until the very end.

[-] HKayn@dormi.zone 15 points 1 year ago

it is literally how I connect with my niche community on there

And that's why it's only 13%

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[-] OppositeOfOxymoron@infosec.pub 13 points 1 year ago

In related news, Twitter is up to 80% nazi billionaire despot disinformation bots now. Congratulations!

[-] cloud@lazysoci.al 10 points 1 year ago

They didn't lose money, which is what they care for. They also don't lose much power on people because these who are leaving are most likely smart people that twitter and other companies don't want in the first place. Their business plan is to rely on stupid people, just like apple do selling their overpriced products, they know that no matter what as long as they stay relevant there will be idiots following the trend. Purging smart people benefits them because they can create a bigger circlejerk and keep at bay potential troublemakers. Their fail is in the total lack of foresight but big tech and capitalism never ever gave a shit about what's not directly under their nose.

[-] upstream@beehaw.org 18 points 1 year ago

You almost had me there - until you claimed Apples business plan was to sell to stupid people.

[-] yoz@aussie.zone 11 points 1 year ago

In his defense , the laptop is the only thing that you can give credit for, rest of the stuff is just overrated BS with locked in feature that will only work with other apple products so yea its selling to stupid people who love apple *ecosystem"

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this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
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Technology

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