- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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I was expecting much less than that. o_O
That's because it isn't worth nearly that.
It was estimated at around $20 bil when he bought it. Since then he has more than cut revenue in half. The value today is at most $ 10 bil.
Except Musk has added a burden of $ 20 bil in debt, causing interest cost of $1.5 bil per year.
Twitter was not earning money when Musk bought it, but now it operates at huge deficits, and has huge negative internal value.So the company has a net negative value. The only value may come from losses being tax deductible to a buyer. But that too is worth way less than the debt. Any value is completely speculative, based on a belief against evidence, that the company can still be turned around.
And tax deductions on a loss are still a loss. Tax write-offs are a partial mitigation. They're taken off income, not directly from taxes.
If your tax rate is 25% and you write off a $100 loss, you still lose a net $75. Yeah, if you make negative money you may avoid some taxes entirely, but not all. There's still payroll tax, property tax, sales tax, and more that are isolated from corporate income tax.
A write-off will never make a company that's losing money before taxes profitable. They just soften the blow.
My understanding is that tax write-offs are deducted from the revenue, as in profit is revenue - expenses - write-offs, with different things being written of over different periods of time. So, let's say vehicles are written off over 8 years, and I buy a truck for 40,000$, I can deduct 5,000$ each year from my revenue, meaning my taxable profits are 5,000$ less each year.
Whether a multi-year or single-year write-off, it's still coming off taxable income, not taxes owed.
That truck doesn't become free. If your tax rate is 25% and you manage to write it off at 100%, you saved 10 grand in taxes. Which is nice if you need the truck, but if you don't actually need it you've actually wasted $30,000.
That's pretty much what I've been saying.
The value of twitter isn't its revenue but rather its userbase. Which is still extremely strong.
Doesn't change the fact that the value when Musk bought it was estimated around $20 bil.
With an added debt since that of a similar amount of around $20 billion. It still ends up zero, even with the 20 bil worth of it's customers.
With the reduced revenue, the value of those customers are also reduced.So no matter how strong it was, it doesn't change the fact that it hasn't gotten stronger, and their value is no longer enough to balance the debt and deficits.
So you genuinely think twitter is worth 0$? If so, you are dumb. corporate debt means nothing when the main value you have is intangible, nonliquidatable assets. Twitter is still worth a lot of money, even with it's debt and revenue decline.
Twitter is still worth a lot of money,
No it's not, people putting more money into it, are more likely to lose than to earn on it. The thing formerly known as twitter, is a dead man walking, it will only be able to continue for as long as people accept not getting their money, or putting money into it at a loss.
Of course the millions of users have value, but the company does not, because the debt is higher than the total value. Only way to continue, is a restructuring where a lot of people will lose a lot of money, but they may accept it as better than losing all.
Elon musk managed to push half his loss onto other people, by borrowing $20bil in Twitter. I suspect they will not be happy, and Elon Musk's word will be worth a lot less after this.
Its funny how this headline keeps coming up every couple of weeks with a smaller number each time.
I dont know how they generate these evaluations, and honestly I dont even trust they are accurate. Or care, my life is fully uneffected by the success or failure of that site.
But it is always funny to read the new nearly identical headline with the number shifted down by 1-4 billion from last time.
Companies such as Fidelity give an estimate on how much they are value after analyzing the finances of the company I think.
Fidelity does this because they invested in Twitter alongside Musk, and as a bank they are required by law to disclose the current value of their assets. They come up with a value of their stake, then the rest of us divide that by the percentage Fidelity owns to get the value of the company.
Is it, though?
Its a digital message board on some overpriced servers.
Is this the wikipedia-argument back at him? The whole twitter post history could fit on a single hard drive, so why are people paying for it?
That argument is unfair anyway, cause what fits on a hard drive gets bigger every year.
No it’s completely fair because the value of information deflates as we gain better ability to store it! /s
And there's endless examples of a small well ordered thing being far more expensive than essentially the same thing less ordered in bigger volume - a room full of carbon dioxide, a bag of coal, a diamond…
Considering that almost every public lib continues to use it, there is something to it, even if only the network advantage.
And a lot of consumers on it
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Transforming Twitter into an 'everything' app is a terrible idea. Why? Take WeChat, for example. Initially a messaging app, it now incorporates a multitude of services including short video clips similar to YouTube, Twitter-like posts (for friends only), a wallet linked to a bank card, and more. One of my Chinese friends said, 'You won't find anyone in China who doesn't use WeChat because it has everything we need!' It seems that users are quite satisfied with the services WeChat provides.
However, they may be overlooking the drawbacks of such centralized applications:
- Privacy issues: Identity verification is required; without it, most features are inaccessible.
- Censorship: I suspect that all communications are stored on a central server, with algorithms designed to detect sensitive content or keywords related to politics, NSFW material, etc. Since it's linked to your identity, you could easily end up on a blacklist.
- Account suspension: The developer has the power to suspend accounts at any time due to the centralized nature of the system.
- Security risks: If someone gains access to your phone or passcode, they could access your money, your contacts' information, and your personal details, since it's an 'everything' app.
- Manipulation: Show those news that the country or the company want us to, hide those that are not helpful to them.
These issues and risks are inherent in centralized platforms and social media but consolidating them into an 'everything' app only amplifies the risks. My friend mentioned that WeChat hasn't introduced a subscription fee yet, but Twitter and other services have.
I mean, an 'everything' app might be feasible in a restricted country like China, in the United States? Hell not! But, Big Tech and governments have the monopolistic power to make these things happen, so we have to find alternatives. The sooner we migrate, the sooner we can reduce the risks that I mentioned above.
The digital world is incredible, but also dangerous. It's best that we start protecting our own privacy rights, our right to speak freely, and our right to control our own minds and discern the truth.
Wechat als always had the backing of the central government. They got funding and, probably more important, the government slowed or outright banned other apps. The Verge has a good piece on it.
Twitter(X) is Elon’s world. Pretty soon he’ll have so much control over his platform that he can practically cron kings and manipulate outcomes to fit his personal political agenda.
I’m happy to be out and migrate to Mastodon and WireMin since last December. Now I just look at Twitter like it’s the house burning down across the street. Session is also a good alternative, it’s not as fast as WireMin though.
Pretty soon he’ll have so much control over his platform that he can practically cron kings and manipulate outcomes to fit his personal political agenda.
Huh… do kings normally consist of commands that need to be run on a regular basis at scheduled times?
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When you say "not as fast", what does that mean?
The speed of file transfer
So when you compare social media platforms your main metric for choosing one over the other is file transfer speeds?
It is an important metric for me when comparing secure messengers like WireMin and Session, especially when they are both good in terms of security. Of course, their speed needs to be taken into consideration. From the perspective of tracking up-to-date news, I believe Mastodon is the best. While when it comes to the social experience, Lemmy is my favorite.
Why are people writing comments with chatgpt?
Wait, what gives away that this is a ChatGPT comment?
Bullet points and tone of voice
However, they may be overlooking the drawbacks of such centralized applications
My guy it's wechat. It's china. The drawbacks are that they are chinese.
Nobody questions the drawbacks of your entire life being on an app and you being valued on a social score.I'm only starting to realize now that the Fediverse kinda follows the unix philosophy of purpose-built interconnectable pieces interfacing with each other. It's much better than the alternative of just slapping everything into one cumbersome pile.
I'm not very well versed in the Fediverse so this may be wrong.
No, you're right. Theoretically, you could even have a single login for multiple Fediverse sites (Mastodon, Lemmy, PeerTube, etc.).
Technically speaking, I believe you could even comment on this thread via Mastodon if you wanted to since both Lemmy and Mastodon use something called the ActivityPub protocol. But the reverse isn't true since Lemmy isn't configured correctly to view Mastodon content.
Wow! That's kinda insane. I don't know if I've ever seen anyone do that. Perhaps it's just invisible to outsiders, because it's that seamlessly integrated?
You would still be able to see if someone commented from a Mastodon instance. Their username would say something like @username@mastodon.social.
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Those are all pros for Musk, he's an ego maniac and wants all that power to be able to manipulate and control people.
Elon Musk was born on third base but tells everyone he hit a triple.
His parents literally owned slaves.
He was a white kid in South Africa. Even if he was dirt poor and born into a broken home, in he was still further ahead than most of the country. Born at least on first or second base.
He had an upbringing of privilege. Mental and physical healthcare, plenty of food, fancy trips and parties, tutors and tuition, as much money as he wanted to start businesses; dude never wanted for anything. Elon being self made is an absolute lie.
My man, Lonnie, was born on third base and managed to kick the ball into the catcher's mitt when he tried to slide into home base.
I'm so tired of Musk…Can we please shoot him into the immense vacuum of space aboard one of his precious Teslas?
It actually would be pretty easy to ignore him but this place is absolutely obsessed with dissecting his every move.
The so called muskie haters are the most fanboi of him after all
Only if Trump is in the frunk.
How about all the billionaires.
Such a thing shouldn't exist.
There's a lot of drama around him, and some because of his own stupidity and pot stirring, but maybe the world could do with more like him.
Though he may not be self-made in the sense of lifting himself out of poverty into success. He does work pretty damn hard to forward his companies and the goals he sets, so that's admirable.
Surely a big reason he gets so much flak is because he enjoys being in the public eye, unlike Bezos, for example.
Public figures like Musk draw an annoying and undeserved amout of attention, though. I mean there's so much else happening in the world more worthy of our time, but that doesn't generate ad-revenue now does it?
Ummm… The goals he sets are… Not good. Doesn't matter how hard you work if your hard work is destroying a company.
Yeah, I meant this more generally.
I've been with a very frugal start-up for many years and it's amazing what a small team can get done compared to larger companies.
I think the fact that Twitter is able to run with so much fewer staff probably points to how bloated they were.
I think Twitter's stock price was a huge bubble waiting to burst anyway.
Maybe things will turn around if we give X some time. I'm against platforms like what Musk is building with X, I don't like their stickiness and the fact that the walls between functions are blurred and data can consequently flow between them. They become monopolies; they begin to regulate and discriminate against their users however they see fit and ultimately leave you with little real choice.
I don't get that platform. I just signed up for mastodon and am not sure I'm feeling that either.
I feel like these Twitter-style sites are just …like… Keyboard warriors. It's just smug post after smug post.
It honestly creeps me out. Like I see all these popular political posts by profile icons I recognize… But every post is just whinging…
Who are these people and why do they get popularity and even mentioned on the news as truth when their posts have no sources and are just bullshit political emotion. Then you read a news article that "Twitter is cancelling…". All because there was one post about with someone acting like a dick.
In its ideal form, a microblog style site could literally provide an online version of a collective consciousness of society. It would be a live feed of normal people's thoughts.
Except in reality it's porn, smug posting, corporate advertising, vitriol, and propaganda all fueled by algorithms written to keep mofos scrolling.
It was good for two things: on the ground news, and speaking directly to businesses to resolve customer complaints.
speaking directly to businesses to resolve customer complaints.
It really pisses me off that companies respond to Twitter posts but will ignore tickets and emails in their own support system.
Porn, smug posting, and vitriol? Sounds like collective consciousness of society to me.
Would the collective consciousness actually be interesting to read?
I think the whole point is that it gives media companies something to pretend is “news,” and everyone else something to be pretend-outraged over. Full stop.
I'm with you. Lots of randoms giving their opinions on something that other randoms can show their support for? Huh… alright, I guess.
Any social media that involves Followers are destined to be bin fires.
I tried mastodon, some of it is sweet, but eventually you voice a different opinion to someone with lots of followers, and get attacked by the tribe.
Who gives shit? Let it sink. Let it be forgotten. Stop giving it attention.
it's only worth what someone is willing to pay for it
We start the bid at $20.
Do we have $20?
Remember bidders that Twitter…ahem…X?.. X… Okay…X… Still has employees…really?…employees that are clearly loyal and easily controllable, as well as a nominal amount of IT equipment.
It's called "eloning"
I thought elon was supposed to be smart
When will these eLon simps finally admit to themselves that the person they've been idolizing is a dumb bitch?
That's what X is valuing itself at, not what it's worth. We'll get a better sense of what it's worth when it goes back on the market or goes bankrupt, whichever happens first. Right now I have a hard time imagining anyone would pay that much for it. For context Snapchat, which has had a lot more success with advertising lately, is worth about $16 billion.
what is the tech angle here?
Elon… Whenever anything about tech is discussed knowing the daily routines of some immature south afrikaans billionaire is unavoidable.
If only more people would move to Mastodon it could drop another 50% in value!
Mastodon got a shout out on the latest Some More News, which was cool.
Anything that helps demonitize Twitter is good in my opinion!
I am so happy for that🥰
