# Is it Legal? Elon Musk ultimatum. Do ‘extremely hardcore’ work or get out **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 16, 2022, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040 "2022-11-16T17:11:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2022, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/361 "2022-12-01T23:12:49Z")
Sorry for all the typos. I got called away and saved, and missed the edit window. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2022, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/362 "2022-12-01T23:19:50Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Most Youtube content providers simulpost their content to multiple locations. …many of the big-money Youtube content providers are _exclusive_, especially the streamers. They get paid to stick to the one platform. Others are locked into Twitch. The smaller content creators that tend to simulpost to multiple locations wouldn’t bring in a lot of eyeballs because (wait for it) there are multiple ways people can _already_ see their content. And this is where Twitter as a video platform runs into problems. Its _expensive_ to run a video hosting platform. The virtual graveyard of failed video/streaming platforms is [big](https://www.failory.com/startups/streaming-failures). Youtube and Vimeo and Twitch all have clear and distinct “personalities” and have clear and distinct target markets. Twitter doesn’t have any of that when it comes to video. There is no reason why any of the big-name content creators should move over unless Elon opens up the checkbook. And even then there is no guarantee the audience will follow. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Or, you just try it and see what happens. With all due respect Sam, but this is a monumentally stupid idea. It’s something that is only possible if you don’t give a fuck about spending billions of dollars of _other peoples money_. Why would the New York Times waste any time while Twitter “fails, learns why, refactors then tries again?” They don’t have any desire to be part of a glorified beta-test. The New York Times doesn’t care about Twitter’s processes here. They only care about the results. And if Twitters processes mean that they haven’t done the leg-work to demonstrate that the product or service is _viable_, then they have no reason to want to buy in. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > He’s throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks. This isn’t a business. This isn’t how business works. This is a monkey flinging its poo against the wall, sniffing it, then deciding to eat it. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > To make money, obviously. This doesn’t replace the paywall. It only allows the user to bypass it for the article linked on Twitter. Click on another interesting link at rhe site, and you hit the paywall. So this drives traffic to the paper in a way that doesn’t just bang the interested user up against a paywall, which most users simply abandon. This way they get into the site and read an interesting article, which may cause some to subscribe. > > Plus, paywalls aren’t doing all that great. Papers have to give away a lot of free content to hook people, the click-through is terrible, 90% of signups are abandoned, etc. It could well be that micropayments are more profitable than the paywall subscriptions. Also, anyone who waned to link to a new paywalled article on Twitter would hav pe to buy a subscription to that paper, since they aren’t following a Twitter link. > > This might get them even more subscribers, plus micropayments. And if they get nothing, they still have the pywall. It’s a free roll if it isn’t too expensive to implement. We all know how its supposed to work. That isn’t the question. The question is will this make money? That’s all the New York Times will care about. It needs to be more than just a trickle of cash. The margins need to be big enough to justify the New York Times upending the current business model. Just because Elon Musk is irresponsible and can afford to lose millions of other-people’s-money on a gamble doesn’t mean that everybody else is. No, paywalls aren’t doing great. But its Elon Musk’s job to convince people that “micropayments are more profitable than the paywall subscriptions.” This is _essential_. This isn’t “Field of Dreams.” If you build it, they won’t simply come. ![](https://media.giphy.com/media/gZuxOq7zSL5DO/giphy.gif) There are no short-cuts here. You just have to do the work. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Twitter Shopping: It sounds like a reasonable idea, but the devil,is always in the details, as it is with the stuff I mentioned above. I didn’t even know there was Twitter shopping. It’s not integrated very well if it’s live. It was a _pilot_. It hadn’t launched. They were doing the work to make sure that when it did launch, they had the best chance for success. That means testing on a small audience, that means convincing thousands of retailers that the idea was viable. They were doing the _work_. And they kept doing it right up until the moment they were kicked to the curb. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I agree there is a lot of concern about the stability of Twitter right now. **The only way to fix that is time**. Incorrect. Twitter, as a platform, _was_ stable. That stability (and in turn, confidence in the platform) went away when Elon Musk took over and fired a large proportion of the staff. “Time” isn’t going to fix the fact that an advertiser has nobody to call because all of the Key Account Managers they used to deal with all got fired. Only more staff is going to fix that. What Twitter is facing right now is all entirely self-inflicted. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2022, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/363 "2022-12-01T23:21:01Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Sorry for all the typos. I got called away and saved, and missed the edit window. …if I didn’t have a spellcheck extension installed on my browser, every single post would be a disaster! I’d be lost without it. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2022, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/364 "2022-12-01T23:25:55Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Or, you just try it and see what happens. If it fails, you learn why, refactor, and try afain. That’s how Musk builds rockets. Move fast, try lots, break lots, but in the end you get there faster than if you spent a lot of up-front time trying to make aure everything is exactly right, especially when ghere are unknowns that make ‘right’ hard to predict. Much as I dislike Musk, I truly doubt this is how he builds rockets. His designer know the science, they know the engineering, they do the math. Yeah, rockets are rocket science, and things don’t work so you fix them. And he is more aggressive than NASA, which is good. But they don’t throw together a bunch of components and hope it works. You seem to be proposing that they open up a high profit restaurant on the Titanic as it sinks. Not a good idea. Even if the restaurant would work. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/365 "2022-12-02T00:24:22Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > A number of people, however, might realize that they already have access to those services through their local library for free. (Well, for taxes they have to pay anyway.) This is how I get the newspaper I want, in particular, the much more expensive The Economist (it’s a magazine but they call it a newspaper). I get free access to it electronically every week (I also get the New Yorker this way). I do pay for the NYT and a local newspaper, but beyond that, I don’t really need to digest more news. I love my library resources and suggest you check them out. It’s very easy to get access to these items and e-books & audiobooks via whatever device you own. I wouldn’t be interested in paying Twitter for them. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/366 "2022-12-02T12:55:27Z")
The biggest problem with all of this is that Musk is destroying the Twitter brand. Nobody is flocking to Parler, Truth Social, or 4chan to set up shop because people don’t want to be associated with them. For Musk to succeed with Twitter then he needs people to be comfortable associating with the brand, I certainly won’t be posting my music on Twitter (although this is in part because Instagram (ugh) and Tik Tok (double ugh) are better for that). The other thing to keep in mind is that Twitter is small potatoes relative to the truly massive social media companies (#15 as of the last list I saw) being only _slightly_ ahead of Reddit. They don’t have the market clout to bully the industry. Also, it means they don’t have a lot of room to move without fading into irrelevance. There is a level of traffic below which it becomes very hard to gain momentum. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/367 "2022-12-02T14:09:11Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > You seem to be proposing that they open up a high profit restaurant on the Titanic as it sinks. Not a good idea. Even if the restaurant would work. Surely the Lusitania is a better analogy for Twitter right now. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/368 "2022-12-02T14:48:11Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > You seem to be proposing that they open up a high profit restaurant on the Titanic as it sinks. Not a good idea. 2 Stars. The food was good, but the deck chairs could have used some rearranging, the band just _kept playing_, and the ambiance was a bit more panicky than I like. Would not recommend, will not return. > [@Mollie\_Magill](#): > > Surely the Lusitania is a better analogy for Twitter right now. Why do you think so? The Lusitania was sunk as an act of war by a belligerent. The Titanic sank due, in large part, to hubris. IMHO, I’d say the Titanic is a more apt analogy. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/369 "2022-12-02T15:11:15Z")
I would say that Elon deliberately torpedoed Twitter. Though, you’re right - I wasn’t a deliberate act of war. Korean flight 007 would be a better comparison, but then the resturant analogy completely breaks down. I’ll accept “Maus has no idea what he’s talking about” as a possible solution. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/370 "2022-12-02T15:18:54Z")
> [@Mollie\_Magill](#): > > I would say that Elon deliberately torpedoed Twitter. I don’t think so. I think that he was so full of himself that he thought that anything he touched would just turn to gold, that twitter was just waiting for _his_ leadership to flourish under. IOW, hubris. And what does hubris traditionally come right before? The ancient Greeks would have had a field day making a morality play of “Twitter and the Musk”. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/371 "2022-12-02T15:32:21Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I don’t think so. I think that he was so full of himself that he thought that anything he touched would just turn to gold, that twitter was just waiting for _his_ leadership to flourish under. Do recall that it wasn’t more than a few months ago that he was trying to back out of the deal and had to be sued into following through with it. At that time, at least, this was not the way he wanted things to go. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/372 "2022-12-02T16:48:16Z")
“Musk and Twitter on the Internet.” > **[Darmok (episode)](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Darmok_(episode))** > > Picard is captured, then trapped on a planet with an alien captain who speaks a metaphorical language incompatible with the universal translator. They must learn to communicate with each other before a deadly planetary beast overwhelms them.... ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/373 "2022-12-02T17:00:32Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Why do you think so? The Lusitania was sunk as an act of war by a belligerent. The Titanic sank due, in large part, to hubris. IMHO, I’d say the Titanic is a more apt analogy. > [@Mollie\_Magill](#): > > I would say that Elon deliberately torpedoed Twitter. Though, you’re right - I wasn’t a deliberate act of war. Korean flight 007 would be a better comparison, but then the resturant analogy completely breaks down. > … Captain Smith of the _Titanic_ ran it into the iceberg through negligent amounts of inattention to existing risks. Maybe an even better metaphor is Captain Schettino of the _Costa Condordia_ who crashed his ship into the rocks while showing off his knowledge of local navigation by eyeball. Now your _Lusitania_ metaphor totally works if we start from the assumption that Musk bought it to sink it. Not that he bought it to operate it then recklessly sank it instead. That interpretation sees Musk as an outside enemy who wanted to sink Twitter and accomplished that by sneaking aboard and blowing holes in the hull from the inside. Which is probably close enough to what Kapitänleutnant Schwieger did to the _Lusitania_: sink it by blowing holes in the hull from the outside. In either case the good ship _Lusitania-Twitter_ goes down by the bow. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/374 "2022-12-02T18:49:25Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Captain Smith of the _Titanic_ ran it into the iceberg through negligent amounts of inattention to existing risks. Maybe an even better metaphor is Captain Schettino of the _Costa Condordia_ who crashed his ship into the rocks while showing off his knowledge of local navigation by eyeball. Maybe a better captain would be Wrong Way Peachfuzz > **[Peter Peachfuzz](https://rockyandbullwinkle.fandom.com/wiki/Peter_Peachfuzz)** > > Well, they don't call him Wrongway Peachfuzz for nothing!Rocky in response to one of Peachfuzz's blunders Capt. Peter “Wrong Way” Peachfuzz (not to be confused with Commander Peachfuzz ) was a supporting character on the animated television... Musk does seem to be leading the ship in all directions at once. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/375 "2022-12-02T18:54:41Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Musk does seem to be leading the ship in all directions at once Or as the title of a Clint Eastwood movie almost had it: _Every Which Way But Up_. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/376 "2022-12-02T19:23:09Z")
Maybe Captain Hazelwood and the bridge crew of the Exxon Valdez? There was plenty of blame to go around on that one from the corporate offices all the way down. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2022, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/377 "2022-12-02T21:24:44Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Or as the title of a Clint Eastwood movie almost had it: _Every Which Way But Up_. Or Stephen Leacock (IIRC) who said: Lord Ronald mounted his horse and rode off in all directions. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2022, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/378 "2022-12-03T04:59:16Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Or as the title of a Clint Eastwood movie almost had it: _Every Which Way But Up_. I think that is “Every Which Way But Loose.” With the orangutan. I’ll leave others to tie that to Musk. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2022, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/379 "2022-12-03T13:38:20Z")
Yes, that was the movie I meant. A fun movie about a not real bright bareknuckle brawler, his low-life Mom, and an orangutan. And the hapless goons they go up against. Musk could play several roles in that one. > Left turn, Clyde! Right tun, Clyde! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040.md?page=18)