Musk’s latest Twitter plan could be the last straw

Come on, Elon – it’s time to cut your losses

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Oh, Elon. When will you learn? Never, if this latest development is anything to go by: according to a memo reported on by theWall Street Journal, an internal valuation has just placed Twitter’s total value at around 20 billion dollars. Hilariously, that’s less than half of the $44 billion Musk originally paid for the social media site back in October 2022.

But it seems Elon isn’t content with just sitting in the hole he’s fallen into; some unpaid intern has handed him a shovel, and he’s gonna keep on digging down until everyone on Twitter is paying forTwitter Blue- or the site collapses entirely.

Musk’s latest move to drag more people kicking and screaming into $8-subscription land is to reveal more limitations on free accounts; unless youcough up for a Blue membership, your tweets won’t be recommended to other users in the ‘For You’ tab, and non-verified users won’t be allowed to vote in polls either.

Now, any Twitter user with two brain cells to rub together (so, at least half of them) can probably already tell you that the ‘For You’ page is garbage, and it’s really worth sticking to the ‘Following’ tab if you want something approaching the original Twitter experience. But shutting non-paying users out of polls entirely is, well, a dick move from Musk - perhaps he’s scared there might be a repeat of the embarrassing poll where he was told by the site’s user base tostep down as CEO.

Opinion: Cheer up - it might never happen

It’s worth bearing in mind that these latest death throes from the apparently-cursed social media platform come directly from the horse’s mouth - that is to say, Elon’s own Twitter account. That means we should take them with a sprinkling of sodium, since Musk has tweeted out ‘upcoming features’ in the past that have never actually materialized.

Musk claims that the changes are ‘the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over’ even though, you know, everything he’s done so far has yet to make any sort of tangible impact on Twitter’s bot account problems. Bots comprise roughly 5% of the platform’s 330 million users, but account for more than 20% of actual tweets in the US. Oh, andhe’s getting rid of 2-factor authenticationfor non-paying users too, which is going to further worsen the site’s security issues.

Starting April 15th, only verified accounts will be eligible to be in For You recommendations.The is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle.Voting in polls will require verification for same reason.March 27, 2023

Another part of the problem is that despite constantly worsening the free user experience, Twitter Blue is estimated to have made the companyjust $11 millionfrom mobile users since its soft relaunch after Elon took the reins. That sounds like a lot, but it’s a comically small drop in the bucket for a social media giant like Twitter. Nonetheless, Elon claimed in the aforementioned valuation memo that he believes the company will be profitable as early as next quarter.

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I’m putting on my best impression of Chris Hemsworth inThor: Ragnarokto say “will it, though?” - Twitter is still burning money despite slashing staff counts (which leads totrouble like this) and is embroiled in a laundry list of legal disputes which are no doubt costing it a ton of cash. To compound the issues further, many of those cases are specifically Twitter being sued over nonpayment of everything from contracted wages to rent owed to, uh, the British royal family. Yup, you read that right.

Now, as a fun (read: horrifyingly dystopian) little thought exercise, let’s contextualize Elon’s massive losses by taking a little look at some of the things he could’ve spent that wasted $24 billion on instead:

Christian is TechRadar’s UK-based Computing Editor. He came to us from Maximum PC magazine, where he fell in love with computer hardware and building PCs. He was a regular fixture amongst our freelance review team before making the jump to TechRadar, and can usually be found drooling over the latest high-end graphics card or gaming laptop before looking at his bank account balance and crying.

Christian is a keen campaigner for LGBTQ+ rights and the owner of a charming rescue dog named Lucy, having adopted her after he beat cancer in 2021. She keeps him fit and healthy through a combination of face-licking and long walks, and only occasionally barks at him to demand treats when he’s trying to work from home.

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