# Now that Elon Musk has bought Twitter - now the Pit edition (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 25, 2022, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442 "2022-04-25T22:50:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 153
**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:** [February 2, 2023, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3044 "2023-02-02T20:13:32Z")
The real impediment to all the micropayment systems ideas is that the actual cost for the multiple participants to move the money and track the accounting means the minimum vig for a viable business is too big of a percentage. I would _love_ to be able to buy, e.g. NYTimes or Forbes articles for $0.25 each. But not when the payments platform vendor fees mean content providers have to sell for a $1.00, plus I pay $0.50 to the payments platform for the privilege of using it. And that’s _before_ the first successful micropayments system realizes it has a captive two-ended monopoly and decides to jack the fees simply because it can. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2023, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3045 "2023-02-02T21:07:13Z")
I don’t really see the micro transaction model working for Twitter. Most people don’t care that much about the people they follow. I get the sense that many people are on Twitter as a fun way to pass the time. If they had to start paying, they would find some other free way to pass the time. There are endless ways to waste time on the internet. Sure, some people are really interested in what a celebrity or reporter has to say and would pay for that access, but I think that’s just a tiny percentage of the Twitter user base. I think for most people, Twitter is something to idly scroll through while they’re standing around waiting for something like their coffee to ready. It probably doesn’t matter a whole lot to them if they’re wasting their time on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, SDMB, etc. For a content creator to get their audience to pay for content, their content has to be really, really compelling. Most of Twitter’s content is not nearly compelling enough to get people to pay for it. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47774/32.png) [@epbrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2023, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3046 "2023-02-02T21:32:01Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Maybe instead of asking how Twitter is going to fall apart with only 2500 employees, you might ask what the hell the other 5,000 had been doing, because Twitter has been a fairly stagnant product for a long time, both in terms of feature growth and stock growth, It has been the worst performing of all the big social media companies by a mile, was barely profitable, and was ripe for _something_ to be done. Twitter was stagnant, why did they add those people? (They _were_ growing.) Those people weren’t doing anything anyway - but the _remaining_ people need to work 80-hour weeks. That’s just so company won’t lose $4M/day. Except it wasn’t, until the new owner put billions in debt on the balance sheet. But the biggest contradiction is that Twitter was a woke, broke, overstaffed mess… worth $44B dollars. (And Warren Buffett got shit for spending a billion on Coca-cola stock in the 80s…) Pre-Elon Twitter was inching towards consistent profits before the buyout, in no small part because their moderation of the more hateful content was letting them attract advertisers. At its core, Musk’s idea of an unmoderated social media platform surviving on advertising revenue is unworkable. And his cheerleaders don’t seem to notice that even _he_ is acknowledging that, because the whole “If I build it, they will come” narrative has been dropped for an escalating series of cash-grab schemes - subscriptions, videos, access-levels, now payment processing. And the most annoying bit? He’ll wind up creating something that’s nothing like pre-Elon Twitter or the platform he promised, and his sycophants will crow about how he _saved_ it because it there’s a 3-rd tier Venmo-app with the same name. ---
**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:** [February 2, 2023, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3047 "2023-02-02T22:05:29Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > The real impediment to all the micropayment systems ideas is that the actual cost for the multiple participants to move the money and track the accounting means the minimum vig for a viable business is too big of a percentage. And there is also the fact that there were security concerns _before_ Musk fired most of the security staff. I’m not too keen on giving twitter my credit card number. ---
**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:** [February 2, 2023, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3048 "2023-02-02T22:55:20Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I don’t know if you’re missing my point or being deliberately obtuse. That statement is generally correct, with the key word there being “project” and the implication of a particular deliverable. Or as I just finished saying, “A second point is that because of dependencies in an integrated development project, certain activities are inherently serialized and cannot be run in parallel.” Yeah, I missed that distinction the first time around. And you’re right - the MMM doesn’t apply to an organization as a whole. But it could, if the company’s management has allowed MMM thinking to bloat a whole bunch of projects. Truth is, none of us know why people were layed off, and how the decisions were made. Overall skepticism/disdain of Musk makes some think he did this capriciously without thought like a bull going through a China shop. My thinking is based on looking at his track record, where he has succeeded at a number of companies in the face of people saying he would fail. Maybe he’ll fail this time, but I wouldn’t bet against him. I might not bet for him in this case either - social media may be different than what he’s used to. But assuming he’s made terrible choices and broken the company assumes facts not in evidence. Also, he’s not an outlier. If cutting staff is obviously a bonehead move, how do you explain the cuts throughout Silicon Valley? I think you can make the case that the easy money created by a decade of zero interest rates and ‘quantitative easing’ and Covid relief money caused enormous bloat in Silicon Valley, and that’s now being corrected. Of note: In August Snapchat laid off 20% of its workforce - 1,000 employees. Robinhood cut 23% of its staff, 780 people. That’s after laying off 9% the year before. In November while we all paid attention to Twitter cutting half its work force, Lyft layed off 13% of its work force - about 700 employees. In the same month Meta laid off 13% of its employees - 11,000 people! In January Amazon announced it was laying off 18,000 people, and Salesforce layed off 8,000 employees - 10% of its work force. Also in January, Coinbase laid off 20% of its workforce, and Microsoft announced its cutting 10,000 jobs, or about 5% of its work force. Google recently announced it is cutting its workforce by 12,000 jobs. Spotify also anounced it is cutting 6% of its work force. While Twitter’s cuts are the largest in terms of percentage of the work force, it’s clear that this is part of a trend going through Silicon Valley. The era of cheap money and easy venture capital is coming to an end, and the Valley is adjusting. And this is just the start. ---
**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:** [February 2, 2023, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3049 "2023-02-02T23:34:02Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > imagine the value of Twitter being able to allow users to transfer payments to each other, or for Twitter to be able to pay vendors on your behalf. …I don’t know what its like over in North America, but here in New Zealand and much of the rest of the world if I want to transfer payment to another person here, I ask them for their bank account number, then I log into my bank account, enter their bank account number into my payment details then I pay them. Same with vendors. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Content providers will have a built-in ‘Patreon’ style monetization system that doesn’t require their users to go offsite and log in to a 3rd party just to reward content or subscribe. When I have to “go off site” that normally involves a couple of seconds while a new page loads, then I fill out all the details as normal or click “pay with PayPal”, there is another pause for about a second before it takes me back to the original screen. The process is so seamless now that you barely even notice you’ve been taken off site at all. It’s designed that way. So what value is there to Twitter to bring it all in house? In all the time I’ve had a Twitter account there have been a total of **zero** times I’ve had the need to pay anybody else, and **zero** times I’ve had the need to pay a vendor. So what is the target market here? Who is going to be using this? It won’t be existing users. Because very little of this sort of thing is actually going on now on the platform. At the very least he would have to launch this alongside a revamped Twitter Shopping (which was effectively sidelined last year when the team got fired) so that people would have something to use payments _for_. And in order to make it viable you would need a significant investment in marketing so that people would know that it even exists. I don’t think the idea of an “everything app” is an inherently bad idea. But that app isn’t going to be Twitter. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Twitter could also become an external payment provider like Paypal. I mean: it could try. But my online shop uses Paypal and Stripe. They are convenient, trusted in the marketplace, and just _work_. Can you sell me on why I would switch/add Twitter as well? > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And the system can also be used to broker micropayments, fixing a substantially flawed paywall environment for media. I think we’ve discussed this before. Twitter would need to prove that any new system would offer better long-term value than what the newsrooms currently are already doing. That we haven’t _already_ seen a move towards micropayments seems to indicate the value isn’t there. The media aren’t going to completely overhaul their existing business models because Elon needs another revenue stream. And here’s another important thing to consider. This is my news recommendations as of a few minutes ago: [![](https://i.postimg.cc/z5pV5xVP/Screenshot-2023-02-03-at-11-30-36-AM.png) ](https://i.postimg.cc/z5pV5xVP/Screenshot-2023-02-03-at-11-30-36-AM.png) Can you see how many New Zealand news topics the algorithm is recommending to me? Zero. And when I click on “Satanic Temple” does it take me to a range of newspaper articles posted by their respective news organizations that would enlighten me on why it happens to be number one on my news recommendations? Nope. If I was a news organization and if this is the kind of news recommendations that would pop up on my feed, I’d be running quickly in the other direction. That Nick Fuentes (the well-known white supremacist, anti-Semitic, Holocaust denialist, founder of Groypers AKA the Groyper Army AKA racist far-right activists/provocateurs/trolls, and Youtuber) is the fourth trending “news” topic is not a great advertisment for newsroom micropayments. And the complete lack of localization would mean that no newsroom here in NZ would even consider it. And the thing is: it didn’t use to be like this. The news recommendations used to be actually useful and used to point to the actual news. Now its just a game of Mad Libs. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > As someone who has considered making paid content but is daunted by the minimum requirements and algorithmic foibles of Youtube, this could be an exciting development. I suspect Youtube has nothing to fear from Twitter. Twitter video is still unstable, with about at least 5% of videos that show up on my feed not even loading properly and the quality being mid at best. And with both uploading longer videos and 1080p videos being restricted to only Twitter Blue users, that means the _majority_ of videos currently being shared are all shorter and lower quality, currently making Twitter a _terrible_ showcase for video. Any single one of these ideas might be viable. But they are all impossible to develop in an environment that is unfocused, chaotic, that thinks its being “agile” but in reality is just flinging shit at the wall. You can’t develop a product without doing the market research first. A “good idea” simply isn’t enough. ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3050 "2023-02-03T01:05:48Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > I ask them for their bank account number, then I log into my bank account, enter their bank account number into my payment details then I pay them. Here in the US, third party payment apps have become hugely popular because most people absolutely do not want to share their bank account numbers due to fraud concerns. (I finally convinced Mom to stop writing checks as gifts when mobile deposits became so popular…what happens to that check after it’s electronically deposited?) The last time I had to collect money at work for a group gift, many people used Venmo instead of handing me cash; it was just a matter of exchanging user names. My mom even pays for her lawn care service with Zelle, a payment option offered by her bank; she and the lawn care guy never see each other’s actual account information. ---
**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:** [February 3, 2023, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3051 "2023-02-03T01:23:17Z")
> [@WolfpackJeep](#): > > Here in the US, third party payment apps have become hugely popular because most people absolutely do not want to share their bank account numbers due to fraud concerns. …yeah, but the thing is, that’s a US only thing. Around most of the rest of the world, it’s a **solved** problem, and it’s been solved for probably decades. We use bank accounts for everything here. I pay my power bill, my phone bill, I pay invoices, I deposit funds into my friends and families accounts without even batting an eyelid. So an alternative for Venmo or Zelle is really only a thing that would be of interest to the US market: something I’m not entirely sure that Elon Musk has figured out. Most users for Venmo are based in the US, and Zelle is _exclusively_ US based. Musk isn’t going to ever be able to compete with Alipay. So at best he’s looking at going after a market that is no bigger than the US, where one competitor has a name synonymous with “friends wiring friends money”, and the other is literally owned by the biggest banks in America. ELON MUSK: “I’ve got a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel.” BENOIT BLANC: [![](https://64.media.tumblr.com/6364cc0d53ff18b64460642a825af8f8/079e8d0940edc4db-14/s540x810/7c7f686cdbe6c7a6caf1fd76fbd8bb2daa7f233e.gifv) ](https://64.media.tumblr.com/6364cc0d53ff18b64460642a825af8f8/079e8d0940edc4db-14/s540x810/7c7f686cdbe6c7a6caf1fd76fbd8bb2daa7f233e.gifv) ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3052 "2023-02-03T02:25:59Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Truth is, none of us know why people were layed off, and how the decisions were made. Overall skepticism/disdain of Musk makes some think he did this capriciously without thought like a bull going through a China shop. I understand why people get so frustrated with you, Sam. We actually know **a lot** about why people were layed [sic] off, and how decisions were made. This is one of the most public clusterfucks that’s ever been. We’ve got leaked emails, leaked video calls, insider reports, and, if you haven’t cottoned on by now, I **personally** got an inside view of the chaos from someone who watched it all go up in flames. Elon did axe some whole departments when he first took over, and those decisions may have been strategic. But the vast, vast majority of people who left Twitter quit, because Elon reversed the WFH policy and then made people commit to working “extremely long hours at high intensity.” Thus, there was an exodus. And the capriciousness of his demands almost guaranteed that the exodus lacked strategic vision, because the more people who quit from your area, the dumber you’d be to stay. Hence, whole shops left. Whole bodies of knowledge. There was no vision. If this doesn’t strike a “Bull in a China shop” chord with you, then Christ. What would? And then you come here and say “None of us know what really happened.” The fuck we don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3053 "2023-02-03T02:26:31Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > We use bank accounts for everything here. Echoing this, as a European resident. Anything that involves a financial transaction, there’s a bank account number on it (or a QR code equivalent that works with various apps). I mean, we get charity flyers in the mailbox: “Want to feed children in South Asia?” or whatever. “Here’s our IBAN!” Maybe the prospect of using peer-to-peer money transfers with online counterparties sounds like high tech wizardry in North America, but I guarantee you, if Twitter really is intending to pitch that here, it will land with a loud thud. Of course, given that Musk is giving GDPR agencies here the finger, it’s quite possible he’s written off Europe entirely and will just geoblock us and call it good. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3054 "2023-02-03T02:34:05Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > And then you come here and say “None of us know what really happened.” Remember: every accusation is a confession. He doesn’t really know so he believes nobody does. ---
**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:** [February 3, 2023, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3055 "2023-02-03T03:42:57Z")
Interestingly, in the US, if you have someone’s bank account number, it’s actually hard to put money in, but not that hard to take money out. That’s why in the US, it’s a number we rather keep private. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3056 "2023-02-03T04:23:05Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > In November while we all paid attention to Twitter cutting half its work force […] In the same month Meta laid off 13% of its employees - 11,000 people! While [continuing to recruit other workers](https://dot.la/meta-jobs-los-angeles-2658630754.html), and in the following month rehiring some of the very engineers they laid off. > [@](#): > > It’s no surprise, however, that Meta is still continuing to hire new people amid layoffs. During the platform’s third-quarter earnings call back in October, Meta’s Chief Strategy Officer David Wehner [noted](https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2022/Meta-Reports-Third-Quarter-2022-Results/default.aspx) that the company plans to shrink some teams and invest in higher-priority items on its agenda. While hiring at Meta will be “dramatically” slower than usual, Wehner noted that Meta plans to keep its workforce at its current levels or slightly smaller. Not claiming that the mass layoffs aren’t significant or don’t reflect a major rebalancing in the company structure, but the naive interpretation of “oh noes Meta and the whole tech sector henceforth can only shrink” is an overreaction. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And this is just the start. Whatever that means. If it means “there will be some more net job loss at many major tech companies in the near future coming off the pandemic boom, even as they continue to expand selected parts of their enterprises”, that’s probably true. If it means “tech sector companies are now just going to get smaller and smaller indefinitely”, it’s probably not. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3057 "2023-02-03T04:23:36Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I block every single brand or sponsor that I see on sight. OK, I started doing this today. I’m not sure yet if it’s working, but I’m enjoying the hell out of it. ---
**Author:** ![omenran](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omenran/32/3318_2.png) [@omenran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omenran)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3058 "2023-02-03T05:13:50Z")
> [@Mr.E](#): > > Looks like Elon is going after all those freeloaders who use Twitter’s API to provide the hugely valuable services that have made Twitter as popular as it is today. This morning I was looking on Reddit and saw a post about this in a subreddit for a mobile game I play, and the initial announcement caused some panic that it would affect accounts that were using Twitter as an account login. It doesn’t appear this was the case for now. But I doubt it creates any goodwill or trust that it may be affected down the line. ---
**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:** [February 3, 2023, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3059 "2023-02-03T07:15:41Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > This is my news recommendations as of a few minutes ago: …as per an hour ago, the top trending news topic was simply “The Chinese.” I’m simply too scared to click onto that one to see what that is all about. Nick Fuentes is still there: he’s not going anywhere. Beijing, Geraldo, Socialism, Venezuela, Muslim American. All important topics to us down under, obviously. Nothing about the biggest stories down here, the Auckland flooding or Mayor Wayne Brown. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3060 "2023-02-03T07:33:58Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > in the US, if you have someone’s bank account number, it’s actually hard to put money in, but not that hard to take money out. That is completely fucked up. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3061 "2023-02-03T07:42:44Z")
As an American who transplanted to Europe and has firsthand experience with local finance practices, I can confidently state that American retail banking is _at least_ twenty-five years behind the curve in terms of infrastructure, security practices, and consumer transparency. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3062 "2023-02-03T08:04:06Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That is completely fucked up. I blame the 80-year-olds who still insist on paying with a check at the grocery store. ---
**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:** [February 3, 2023, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3063 "2023-02-03T13:54:40Z")
Particularly the ones that pull out the checkbook _after_ you give them their total. 😡 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442.md?page=152) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442.md?page=154)