Find the value of X. nerd

The number of monthly users of X dropped by 15% in the first year since Musk’s takeover amid concerns over a rise in hate speech on the platform.

It really is slowly dying.

  • rootsbreadandmakka [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    15%

    sad, should’ve been more given that the site is completely unusable at this point, but I guess there isn’t really an established replacement yet. Honestly the only thing keeping Twitter afloat at this point is just the lack of replacements for that type of social media since the site itself has been made completely unusable.

    • ReadFanon [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      What we’re not seeing is granular data on their userbase, not that we ever will, but I’d venture a guess that it’s much more damning than that 15% represents.

      To illustrate my point, take my experience with the Reddit API changes. This was the absolute last straw for that shithole for me.

      I still have an account on Reddit. I still dip into a couple of very niche subs to check on them and to provide info to people where I can, but almost exclusively through DMs. Sometimes articles redirect me to a Reddit source. Fairly commonly, search results for things like tech fixes direct me to Reddit.

      I’m still a Reddit user (🤢🤮)
      I would still be represented in their monthly user stats.
      Even if I deleted my account, I would still visit Reddit at least once a month (this is even more applicable to how closely connected the news media and Twitter are.)

      Do I comment on Reddit anymore? Nah.
      Do I upvote or downvote things on Reddit? Very rarely.
      Do I spend any significant amount of time browsing Reddit these days? Nope.
      Have I switched from being an active contributor on Reddit, which is probably like 10% of their total active userbase, to being almost entirely passive? Yep.

      Idk (because I don’t care about Twitter beyond enjoying watching it implode and the anticipation of this potentially taking Elon with it) but I have a hunch that they’ve had a huge decline in their active contributors and especially those who made Twitter a valuable social media site (in the sense that you’re always going to get trolls, bots, marketers and those really vapid chain response tweets as a form of low-value content but there’s a certain amount of active contributors who create something of value which attracts other users - and those are the really important users. If that cohort of people shift from high-value contributions to passive consumption or occasionally dipping in only to answer DMs or because of a link redirecting them to Twitter then the site is moribund.)

      • voight [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        I’ve killed all my gimmick accounts and shit even. When I see a tweet I hate too much to ignore I just make a whole new account and start trying to rip off the face of everyone on there who annoyed me in the last 12 hours

        I really hope I’m doing my part to drive away the last remaining profitable users.

      • rootsbreadandmakka [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        Yeah true, I’d probably technically be a Twitter user even though I never use the site. I do still have an account over there to look at something every now and then. I don’t interact with anyone though

      • rootsbreadandmakka [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        yeah Mastodon seems to be the best one. There’s a fair amount of activity there it seems, but it still feels sort of niche, and doesn’t seem to have caught on yet as the alternative. I’d use it, but I never really used twitter in the first place so I don’t really have any need for Mastodon.

        • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          of course it’s niche. if it wasn’t it would suck. the worst part about the “social media” model of internet culture is how it homogenizes and totalizes. the reason this site rocks so much is because it’s comprised of a relatively small handful of mentally unstable commie freaks, with opportunities to interact with slightly different kinds of freaks. i do not want to post on a site where the hamburger helper mascot can insinuate itself into the conversation.

    • Azarova [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      I feel like that number is obfuscating that a lot of bots have flooded the platform. The number of actual users likely dropped far more.