# 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:** 154
**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, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3064 "2023-02-03T14:16:11Z")
Maybe, but it’s really no different from credit card numbers. In the US, if you have someone’s credit card number, you can use that to pay for things. Is that the case in other countries as well? > [@Smapti](#): > > I blame the 80-year-olds who still insist on paying with a check at the grocery store. I have people much younger than that pay by check all the time. I also use checks to pay many of the business’s bills and taxes. They still have their uses, though I don’t understand why people use them for day to day transactions. ---
**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, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3065 "2023-02-03T14:30:38Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > Around most of the rest of the world, it’s a **solved** problem, and it’s been solved for probably decades. That sounds so awesome to me…I really wasn’t aware of it. > [@Cervaise](#): > > 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. I bet Twitter wouldn’t roll out such a service for free… Or maybe they will, and they’ll still find a less than receptive audience. I won’t even use my actual credit card on a Facebook donation post, and I certainly wouldn’t feel good about handing financial information over to Twitter. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3066 "2023-02-03T14:52:21Z")
I love Black Adder. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3067 "2023-02-03T15:00:32Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > But Twitter might be in a unique position there. > … > I think only Facebook might have had the capacity and size to do this, or maybe Instagram or Tiktok, but they never seemed interested just like previous Twitter. The obvious company to have tried this is Google, but for whatever reason they never went there. Twitter’s position is unique, except for Facebook, or maybe Instagram, or Tiktok, and obviously Google. Do I have that right? And “they never seemed interested” and “for whatever reason” are doing a lot of work. There are some possibilities: 1. Facebook, Google, etc. just weren’t interested in making money. 2. They were intereted in making money, but it never occurred to them that microtransactions might be a potential revenue stream. 3. They thought about it, but failed to hire any good software engineers who knew how to write new code. 4. They had good engineers, but the structural hurdles–federal banking regulations, financial institution fees, data security, and more–made it impractical. It boggles the mind that you apparently think the answer is #1. #2 and #3 are similarly absurd. #4 is the only plausible answer. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3068 "2023-02-03T15:11:06Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > 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. As Sam well knows, in Canada, all you need is an email address. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3069 "2023-02-03T15:16:20Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > > [@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. Me, too. Back in December, Elmo summoned Twitter’s deputy general counsel out to San Francisco for a meeting. According to the counsel, who is my cousin, the meeting started out contentiously, but then turned amicable, and he left thinking that he and Elmo had been in accord. On the plane back home, he discovered he’d been fired. By tweet. Sounds pretty fucking capricious to me. @steronz is correct - we _do_ know how many of these layoffs were done. Maybe Elmo did have some brilliant strategic long-term plan behind the layoffs, but in practical effect, they were capricious and ill-thought out - like, maybe he _shouldn’t_ have fired the people who empty the trash and clean the restrooms at Twitter HQ; or the folks responsible for making sure the rent, electric, and phone bills were paid? Or making sure that Twitter complied with the FTC consent order that could get it shut down for violating, hmm? At a minimum, firing employees by tweet or email is absolutely shitty management, and sure as hell wouldn’t engender any loyalty to Twitter or Musk in me, if I were one of the remnant staff. The broader point, @Sam_Stone, is that Musk’s achievements at Tesla, SpaceX, and such, are completely irrelevant to the topic of this thread, which is about Twitter. Maybe he is a genius engineer, or a brilliant visionary in rocketry, or the driving intelligence behind Starlink; he has abundantly demonstrated that he knows fuck-all about running a social media company, and it’s disingenuous at best for you to argue otherwise. ---
**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, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3070 "2023-02-03T15:30:22Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > In the US, if you have someone’s credit card number, you can use that to pay for things. Is that the case in other countries as well? Only if you also have the CVV. And the phone TFA for online purchases, with my bank, anyway… ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3071 "2023-02-03T15:32:55Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > Around most of the rest of the world, it’s a **solved** problem, and it’s been solved for probably decades. Europeans panic whenever paying by credit card in the United States, and the server takes the card away. In the United States, _this is not a problem_, but Europeans still get nervous. Similarly, the idea of giving someone your bank account number makes Americans very nervous. ---
**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:** [February 3, 2023, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3072 "2023-02-03T15:36:17Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > In the United States, _this is not a problem_ It’s less of a problem than it used to be, but it really can be a problem. I knew somebody whose card was taken away at a fast food place (yeah, that raises a lot of red flags, even in America) and was used to pay off some kind of loan. Yes, her bank flagged that one immediately, but it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. ---
**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, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3073 "2023-02-03T22:15:15Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Maybe, but it’s really no different from credit card numbers. …it is here. In NZ, with a bank account number the only thing a person is able to do with it is to _deposit funds_. You can’t use it to withdraw funds. Unlike a debit/credit card, you don’t give someone your bank account number so people can charge you. If a random person had your bank account number they would have no way to access your account or to authorise a withdrawal. In order to access your account (online or over the phone) you have a _separate_ access number that typically would require a password _and_ a secondary form of login, either 2FA or specific keyboard interactions. With my bank, if I add a new payee (name and bank account number) then in addition I need to use 2FA to authorise that. The only exception to this are direct-debits. You can set up a direct-debit with a business (they automatically withdraw a set amount from your bank) that they use your bank account number to withdraw: however, they require a signed authority form filled out that is then authorised by the bank. Any fraudulent direct-debits would have a paper trail. And apparently our Inland Revenue Service have super secret ways of tracking all of this down. > **[Fraudulent direct debit scam shut down](https://www.ird.govt.nz/media-releases/2019/fraudulent-direct-debit-scam-shut-down)** ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3074 "2023-02-04T00:11:56Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > 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 do I, and I live in the US - are you suggesting that it’s not possible for Americans to easily manage their finances this way, without Venmo, etc.? I’m just one data point, but nearly all of my recurring (and one-time, if I so choose) financial obligations are met through direct withdrawals from my bank account, plus a few directly made from my credit card (though my guess is that if I wanted, I could have those taken directly from my bank account as well). ---
**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 4, 2023, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3075 "2023-02-04T00:18:22Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > are you suggesting that it’s not possible for Americans to easily manage their finances this way, without Venmo, etc.? …that’s a question you would need to direct to fellow Americans. ---
**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 4, 2023, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3076 "2023-02-04T00:52:03Z")
Elmo is now taking a page out of the Nigerian Prince playbook. [![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FoDxXigaMAEntRP?format=jpg&name=medium) ](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FoDxXigaMAEntRP?format=jpg&name=medium) ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3077 "2023-02-04T01:38:17Z")
Didn’t Boy Wonder say he was giving up the position of CEO of Twitter a month and a half ago? Whatever happened to that? ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3078 "2023-02-04T01:47:17Z")
Pssst. I think he was lying (again). 😜 ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3079 "2023-02-04T02:27:06Z")
It’s just Agile genius. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3080 "2023-02-04T02:50:04Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Elmo acknowledges that his other businesses _ **need** _ many thousands of employees. Yet somehow he seems to think he can run Twitter practically alone. Yes. If you fire your entire HR department, or your entire Payroll department, your large company is basically screwed. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3081 "2023-02-04T04:14:56Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Didn’t Boy Wonder say he was giving up the position of CEO of Twitter a month and a half ago? “When a suitable replacement is found”. So never? ---
**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 4, 2023, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3082 "2023-02-04T04:30:07Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Elmo is now taking a page out of the Nigerian Prince playbook. Christ. I may actually want to startup a bot account. ---
**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 4, 2023, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3083 "2023-02-04T05:22:32Z")
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