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Basically No One Has Joined Twitter for Months

L

LordOfLore

Banned
Link.

And why the hell should they? In the past three months, President Trump’s favorite social network has grown by zero (0) users, according to Twitter’s latest earnings report. That’s 66 million fewer new users than Facebook added in the same time period, and 9 million fewer than Twitter itself added during the first quarter of the year.

If you’re worried about Twitter suddenly shutting down, however, don’t. The company pulled in a lot of money ($574 million) selling ads last quarter, and while it still hasn’t really figured out how to turn its endless torrent of user content into real profits, the service isn’t quite tearing at the seams. Things aren’t Blue Apron bad.

According to Twitter’s books, about 2 million people in the US had enough last quarter and outright stopped using it. About 70 million people in the US, around 22 percent of the population, used Twitter during the first quarter of the year. During the second quarter, however, that number fell to 68 million. That’s a big deal—Twitter hasn’t seen a drop like that in the US in years, if ever (the books only show such granular detail from 2015 onward).

Meanwhile, internationally, Twitter grew by a modest 1 million users (to about 260 million), all of whom I can only assume are outright masochists taking supreme pleasure in America’s public meltdown. And why join otherwise? Twitter really can’t make a compelling case. It says it’s made headway in combatting widespread harassment problems, but it still hasn’t kicked the habit of shrugging off blatant violators of its own policies, including, you might argue, President Trump.

As the hellishness of (and noise on) Twitter has increased in recent years, it seems that just about everyone else on the planet with a smartphone has decided there’s no reason to join. Twitter says it’s focused on “making Twitter the best place to see and share what’s happening, where you can see every side and perspective.” But maybe the company has tapped out the population of humans who are willing to subject themselves to this experience in real time. Why bother? You can just get debriefed on the best and worst tweets elsewhere, like cable news.
Click to expand...
 
M

MetroidPrimeRib

Banned
Their answer will be to shadowban more people, verify more neo-nazis and make it so that posts that showed up on your feed show up on followers feeds.
 
P

Platy

Member
How stpid you have to be to almost make a loss for the president of the usa's main communication device ?
 
J

jack_package_200

Banned
Perhaps people don't want to join a social media site where Nazis harass people or youtubers with sizable fanbases instigate harassment or tweet unsolicited gay pornography at people they disagree with or deal with annoying russian bots astro turfing the platform.
 
NOLA_Gaffer

NOLA_Gaffer

Banned
If you're not "famous" Twitter is basically useless.

Anything I happen to tweet is going to be ignored by practically everyone.
 
B

br3wnor

Member
Makes sense, Twitter is kind of niche-ey. I’m a heavy user since 2009 but I barely tweet @ anyone or do any sort of social interaction, it’s essentially a news/entertainment/comedy source for me w/ engagement through likes and retweets. It’s a weird little platform but I love it, happy it hasn’t turned into what Facebook or Instagram are (though I’m sure the shareholders wish it would)
 
Y

Yazzees

Member
I made a halfhearted attempt at getting into it around 2014 but the process of nickle-and-diming your way to a decent following is an incredible slog.

Unless you're some post-gamergate shithead who tweets 500 times an hour about le dank memmz and how feminists are killing video games with chemtrails, in which case here is your free complimentary 10k followers to start out on :) :) :)
 
P

psyfi

Banned
People are definitely "taking pleasure in America's public license meltdown," but as many or more people are also eyeing the US as a hostile and imperialist threat.
 
B

br3wnor

Member
ZiggyPalffyLA said:
*Wario64 posts about a special edition for an obscure game being available for 30 seconds on a site nobody's ever heard of*

*posts again 3 seconds later*

*posts again 3 seconds later*

*I turn off notifications*
Click to expand...

Lol, if it wasn’t for the Classic SNES preorder chance I’d probably turn his notifications off too, but he’s the reason I was able to get the (now useless) Walmart preorder in so if any do actually go up it’ll be worth all the pointless notifications.

Also do get a deal I actually use every once in a while from him.
 
Z

zeemumu

Member
I follow some Twitters that post about events that I typically go to like Halloween Horror Nights but I don't really talk to friends on it
 
L

Lights and Waves

Member
Twitter is really difficult to understand if you're new.

That being said, Twitter is by far the best social media platform. Countless hours spent laughing in it ever day. There's so much great content and it's pretty much the birthplace of memes
 
P

Psychoward

Banned
yeah I've tried to get in to it 3 times and it's been awful each time

I hate the layout, I hate the character limit, I hate that anytime there's a moderately popular tweet I get my inbox filled with complete and utter assholes

no thanks
 
3

31GhostsIV

Banned
I like Twitter, but I use it more as a curated news feed of things I enjoy than something I actively engage with. I'm not sure I've ever actually tweeted anything myself unless I'm shouting at my ISP or something.

Facebook on the other hand I walked away from ages ago and I don't miss it at all.
 
D

deo

Banned
Eh I dont think this has to do with Trump, guys lol
I think its the overall structure. Like mentioned previously, Twitter is basically useless if you dont have thousands of followers.
 
M

MechDX

Member
Twitter is great if used for specific interests. I use it for instant NFL news.

Just dont follow morons. If people start retweeting stupid things just mute them
 
M

MetroidPrimeRib

Banned
deo said:
Eh I dont think this has to do with Trump, guys lol
I think its the overall structure. Like mentioned previously, Twitter is basically useless if you dont have thousands of followers.
Click to expand...

Disagree as long as you can curate a community for yourself. I have like 530~ followers but I still use it every day.

And Twitter gave us dril, the comedic voice of this generation
 
T

TheSpoiler

Member
You don't need thousands of followers to use Twitter. Mine number in the hundreds, and it's me talking to a bunch of nerds about fighting games. I can get games, get tips, etc all on this little website.

You can basically formulate a community. It doesn't have to be a big one.
 
R

Raw64life

Member
I use Twitter strictly as a news source and to follow celebrities. Have not tweeted a single time in 8 years of owning a Twitter account. Somehow I have 65 followers.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Twitter is not a good product at all.

Discovery features are bad so you're almost never going to have an interaction with a stranger unless it's a sociopath who uses it 20 hours a day to yell at people they disagree with. Lack of features to stop abuse means active users have the opposite problem where they have to face a torrent of shit. Celebrities checked out a long time ago so now most famous people have stage-managed accounts. It's really just journalists and comedians actually using it. The UX is terrible (I especially love all the shit they force down your throat and you can't turn off, "Show less of this" doesn't do fucking anything). No privacy granularity at all. Media features are garbage. Embedded images and videos are not very performant. Customer support could one day be something useful on Twitter, but most companies just have "@Soandso Sorry to hear you had a bad experience, DM us for more info" -> DM them -> "We'd be happy to help you with this, please call our customer service line M-F 9-5". If they had a more flexible bot specification they'd be a better platform for this. Oh, and speaking of bot specifications, their API is pretty bad and not useful for researchers, who otherwise would be the greatest evangelists of Twitter. Conversations are impossible because the threading interface is dreadful. If you have privacy turned on then there's no way to suppress follow requests without blocking someone. The onboarding process sucks. The spam problem is out of control, both in terms of sex-bot accounts, russian political accounts, and just blog spam. I think most of the people I know who have Twitter accounts use them for contest signup garbage.

It's hard to think of something Twitter does that it's actually good at.
 
W

Widdle Puppy

Banned
twitter is mostly shit and is basically only good for like breaking announcements for news and and following celebrities.

it has no place in most people's lives.
 
C

Calion

Member
Twitter is 🐐 if you know how to use it right.

Sports, GoT, memes, Black Twitter, award shows, world events.
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Right but like some insane percentage of twitter "users" are bots anyways.
 
C

ClosingADoor

Member
I see less and less value in Twitter. Haven't posted in a year and use it to follow maybe a few people. No clue how to discover new interesting things and anytime you do a search for something it is filled with hate.
 
M

megatronium

Member
Twitter is here to stay.

I've personally been off it and every other social network besides LinkedIn since 2015. One of the best decisions I've made.
 
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