this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2023
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I have a sinking feeling that these moves are not about money, but more about power and manipulation. If you squeeze these user bases such that the savviest users are forced out, those more likely to ask "Why?" about damn near anything, you will own access to a group of people that can be influenced to think/do/buy whatever the top management and/or majority shareholders want. If you lose a few million users, what does it matter if they were dissidents to your goals?
Not money per se, but the oil of the 21st century: data.
I guarantee it's primarily about improving their ability to harvest and sell user data.
Exactly. The native apps can gather so much more info than a website and they have to kill third party apps to force people to use the official client.
This is where my mind goes. Kinda convenient that Twitter and Reddit, both likely particularly dangerous to those seeking power happen to be destroyed seemingly intentionally in the same year ahead of a sure to be insane U.S. election season.
100% power There's parallels to the writer strikes Netflix ceo got like 2x the money that all the writers are asking for in bonus so it's not about money It's something else
You've hit a nail on its head with that analysis. It was never about money when musk bought Twitter, it was about controlling the flow of information and fragmenting any rebellion. Same goes for Reddit, it's not about profitablity, it's about consolidating control over the platform.