774
Elon Musk admits X 'may fail, as so many have predicted' (www.businessinsider.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
351 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 130 points 2 years ago (7 children)

Sure it's his money but does anyone else feel legitimately frustrated at all the good that this money could have done?

Rich dudes have always had vanity projects, but there is no grand concert hall or library or university to come out of this. Just a ruined company with millions of wasted hours of effort. For nothing.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 14 child comments
    •
  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    broken window fallacy

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 23 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    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).

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    The money isn't gone, it's just changed hands

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago

    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.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent