https://mobile.twitter.com/chadloder/status/1594139381727916033
Yeah. I’m going to retire in 4-5 years. There is NO point in teaching javascript, VB, and HTML to the the people that will be developing new systems, or manage my legacy code. None at all. As good as it is (pats self on back) it’s gonna die. We must develop new things to replace it. I keep saying that all the time. But honestly, the new development tools are not quite there yet. Can’t do what I developed.
I have genuine respect for the people that I work with, and really care about the help that my code does. If it where to drop off. Umm… :sigh: Shit. I’m going to be a consultant to my workplace forever I think. I care.
Agree about the user demographics. Not relevant to my point however.
Every mobile phone that can run an app already has an extra-special general-purpose app called a web browser. Which can go to www.twitter.com and display the very same content.
e.g. Google stopping the Twitter app from appearing in their app store in no way impedes any mobile phone user from using Twitter.
One assumes they’re kinda OK with eugenics too. As in “Only the rich should breed freely. We’ll deign to allow some select subset of proles to breed new worker bees for our salt mines. That is all.”
Which doesn’t work nearly as well as the app does on mobile. Can be it done? Of course. Will it result in less user engagement? Very likely. I don’t think Roth would be addressing it in his op-ed if it didn’t matter.
As a counter-point to the “Twitter has no social utility” argument, here’s a WaPo article about how governments are starting to worry that if Twitter goes down, they will lose a valuable way to alert people to major crises, such as the direction a wildfire is moving and when to evacuate:
This is unfortunate, but should governments really be so dependant on some private utility?
Governments are dependent generally on private entities to get their issues out: tv, radio and print journalists, for example. They also use Facebook and other online sources.
What government system is there that has broad-based ability to get news out to the people, that does not involve a private communications entity?
They CAN, but that’s not to say they WILL. Sources report, for example, that American adults spend nearly 90% of smartphone time within mobile apps; that general-purpose web browser accounts for only about ten percent. You get users who think there should be an app they’re using, and they’re less likely to seek out the website on their own.
The government is inextricably intermingled with private businesses at this point. In an ideal world perhaps this wouldn’t be the case, but that’s an entirely different thread. The problem is exacerbated in countries without established infrastructure. Twitter is a tool and governments should use it when they need it. Of course, now they should be making alternate plans as fast as they can.
CBS is quitting Twitter.
Is Twitter really the only alternative to TV? I don’t own a TV, but my computer and smart phone seem like enough - I regularly consult CNN and Reuters, and I subscribe to Wapo, NYT, Harper’s, Atlantic, The New Yorker, our local newspaper, and a really great non-profit news service in Hawai’i, plus I listen to the local NPR station.
If I were a better person/had more time, I’d round that out with looking at the Fox News website and subscribing to WSJ. I don’t feel like I need Twitter to be a competent, well-informed member of the public.
The shocking thing about Musk letting Trump back on Twitter isn’t that he did it – he had already hinted that he would – but the way he did it. The guy ran a goddam poll, which was of course dominated by Trump sycophants, and declared that the people have spoken. But when taking over Twitter, he had promised to set up an ethics oversight committee to make such decisions.
Of course Musk changes his mind about everything every few minutes, but this was an egregious abdication of responsibility.
OK, if the guy respects “the people” so much, maybe he should set up a poll to see what the much-vaunted “people” think of the way he’s running ruining Twitter, and solicity their esteemed opinion on whether he should restore the original management and everyone he fired and then fire himself and get the hell out.
According to Pew Research, only 23% of U.S. adults even use Twitter. In a case of impending danger, such as an approaching wildfire, Twitter is probably not the best communication tool to warn the large majority of people.
You want to use multiple methods. When I was young in the rural midwest the best approach would be to make announcements on local AM radio. I don’t think you would reach 23% of the population that way now.
Of course. I just think that there’s an outsized reaction to the potential demise of Twitter.
No, no, don’t you get it!? This is just him being Agile and super-smart. Everyone else is just stuck in the old modes, man.
But they don’t even bother, really. This week I happened to be watching some cable shows that had collected on my DVR, as opposed to streaming. In something like the second hour, my cable box gave me one of those stupid “required monthly test of the emergency broadcast system” four minutes of annoyance.
Except if I had been watching Netflix instead of my cable box, that emergency broadcast system wouldn’t have done jack shit to reach me.
Even less likely to reach me is if I have to log on to Twitter to see something. I’ve never logged on to Twitter in my life.
More realistically the government would just send emergency texts. That’s good enough, nothing else needed. Link to a government page as needed for more information, done and done.
The National Wireless Emergency Alert System already exists. However, you get those alerts only if your cellphone carrier chooses to participate (most do, but it still involves a private communications entity).
With your cable box, the cable company has a really good idea of your geographic location. Netflix, in an era of widespread VPN usage and so forth, can only guess where you’re located, and since most emergency alerts (severe weather, wildfires, earthquakes, even Amber and Silver Alerts) are relevant primarily in a specific geographic area, it doesn’t do much good to spam Netflix users halfway around the world with something inapplicable. With cell phones, the government needs to rely on the carriers to know who is in the relevant area, since area codes don’t necessarily match location the way they did with landlines.