(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Elon Musk feuds with AOC over eight bucks, and despite home-field advantage, he loses big [1]
['Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags', 'Showtags Popular_Tags']
Date: 2022-11-03
On Monday, King responded to reports that Musk was fixing to charge celebrities with coveted blue “Verified” checkmarks $20 a month for the honor, tweeting, “$20 a month to keep my blue check? F**k that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.” To which Musk replied, “We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?”
x We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8? — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
Seriously? He’s publicly haggling with his most reliable content providers over how much he should charge them for providing viral content? Weird. Then again, he has to recoup that $44 billion he paid for Twitter somehow, and squeezing $8 a month out of people like Ruth Buzzi would go a long way toward making that happen.
That’s where Rep. Ocasio-Cortez—AOC to her fans and foes alike—jumped in. Needless to say, she was not amused.
x Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that “free speech” is actually a $8/mo subscription plan — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 2, 2022
Of course, Musk, who is marginally funnier than cancer but not quite as funny as antibiotic-resistant narwhal syphilis, felt compelled to respond in his patented quippy, queasy fashion, tweeting, “Your feedback is appreciated, now pay $8.”
x Your feedback is appreciated, now pay $8 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022
He even pinned the tweet, which for those who don’t strategize on the bird app, was an attempt to garner enough friendly (to him) attention to “ratio” AOC with negative commentary.
Musk then tweeted this non sequitur, as if fundraising with campaign merch is somehow the height of robber baron capitalism:
At which point the Twitter ninja eviscerated the newly minted Twitter nincompoop, whose labor practices have frequently been brought into question, with a thermobaric truth bomb.
x Proud of this and always will be.
My workers are union, make a living wage, have full healthcare, and aren’t subject to racist treatment in their workplaces. Items are made in USA.
Team AOC honors and respects working people. You should try it sometime instead of union-busting.
https://t.co/TCOh3IHXlF — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 3, 2022
For the nontweeters:
Proud of this and always will be. My workers are union, make a living wage, have full healthcare, and aren’t subject to racist treatment in their workplaces. Items are made in USA. Team AOC honors and respects working people. You should try it sometime instead of union-busting.
I’m no captain of industry, but I always thought it was customary to figure out what the fuck you were doing before you bought a business for $44 billion. Maybe Musk should have done some perfunctory research to see if fucking over Twitter’s greatest asset—an army of users who are willing to work for free—was a good idea. Just a thought. And the timing seems especially bad here. I mean, would you pay a monthly fee to stay on a platform that could be anything from Mad Max: Fury Road to a Christian furry porn site two weeks from now?
Speaking of porn, The Washington Post is reporting that Musk is insisting on going ahead with a new paid video feature, despite those experienced Twitter staff members who he hasn’t gotten around to firing yet having told him it’s a really bad idea.
Twitter is working on a feature that would let people post videos and charge users to view them, with the company taking a cut of the proceeds, according to an internal email obtained by The Washington Post. The company appears to be aiming to rush out the feature, referred to as Paywalled Video, with a target of one to two weeks before launch. But the team has “identified the risk as high,” according to the email, which was sent by an employee on Twitter’s Product Trust team. The email cites “risks related to copyrighted content, creator/user trust issues, and legal compliance” and says the feature will undergo a brief internal review on those issues before moving forward.
Bad idea, right? I mean, who would you believe? The experienced team of Twitter veterans who’ve been working on these issues for years ... or the guy whose social media experience has been pretty much limited to competing with Mike Huckabee for the title of most embarrassing white man multicelled organism on the planet?
Ah, but believe it or not, this idea is even worse than it appears at first blush.
The video shift could also push Twitter, which is unusual among major social networks for allowing nudity and consensual pornography, into competition with sites that specialize in adult content.
Gee, maybe Stephen King will migrate over to PornHub. I, for one, would pay at least $8 to watch him read Dolores Claiborne in his underwear. I can’t be the only one.
Of course, after AOC criticized Musk in his own clubhouse, he appeared to immediately retaliate—which makes all his lofty talk about Twitter being a new town square where free speech is sacrosanct seem kind of, well, empty.
x Also my twitter mentions/notifications conveniently aren’t working tonight, so I was informed via text that I seem to have gotten under a certain billionaire’s skin 😂
Just a reminder that money will never by your way out of insecurity, folks. — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 3, 2022
For the non-tweeters:
Also my twitter mentions/notifications conveniently aren’t working tonight, so I was informed via text that I seem to have gotten under a certain billionaire’s skin Just a reminder that money will never [buy] your way out of insecurity, folks.
That’s certainly true. It’s also true that you can’t B.S. your way out of a money pit you willingly crawled into with your eyes wide open.
When the “glitch” continued into Thursday, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez confronted Musk about it.
x Yo @elonmusk while I have your attention, why should people pay $8 just for their app to get bricked when they say something you don’t like?
This is what my app has looked like ever since my tweet upset you yesterday. What’s good? Doesn’t seem very free speechy to me 🤔 pic.twitter.com/e3hcZ7T9up — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 3, 2022
For the non-tweeters!
Yo @elonmusk while I have your attention, why should people pay $8 just for their app to get bricked when they say something you don’t like? This is what my app has looked like ever since my tweet upset you yesterday. What’s good? Doesn’t seem very free speechy to me
Twitter’s armchair analysts were quick to critique Musk’s missteps, including Wisdom of Crowds author and business/finance journalist James Surowiecki.
x Great example of how weird Musk's plan to charge power users for verification is. AOC has 13.5 million followers. When she writes a tweet like this, it generates millions of impressions, creating considerable economic value for Twitter. And he wants to charge her $8 to do it! pic.twitter.com/EjviPPOAQY — James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) November 3, 2022
UK-based law professor Paul Bernal wrote an entire thread on how Musk “doesn’t understand what makes Twitter work” before the billionaire ever took on the congresswoman.
x Anyway, my tuppence worth on Musk and Twitter. He’s in for a rocky ride, and the question for me is whether his ego is going to make him destroy Twitter. Right now, what’s pretty clear is that he doesn’t understand what makes Twitter work. 1/10 — Prof Paul Bernal (@PaulbernalUK) November 1, 2022
Bernal goes on to astutely note that Musk “seems to think he’s bought a tech company [...] when what he’s really bought is a community of users.” And it’s worth nothing that while the U.S. may have the most Twitter users of any country, nearly 83% of the site’s community of nearly 5 million users are outside the States.
Maybe Musk can buy the Kansas City Chiefs next and charge Patrick Mahomes a small fee to play quarterback for him. Failing that, he can suit up himself. Because watching Musk get brutally sacked in his own end zone (literally instead of figuratively this time) is something most of us would actually pay 8 bucks—or far more—for.
We’re deep in the homestretch before the all-important midterm elections, but it’s not too late to Get Out the Vote or rush a donation to a worthy Democratic candidate of your choice. Let’s do this, people!
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/3/2133325/-Elon-Musk-feuds-with-AOC-over-eight-bucks-and-despite-home-field-advantage-he-loses-big
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
