What happens if Elon Musk is right about Twitter/X?

“Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months,” Elon Musk tweeted (or whatever it’s called now) in November 2022. “We will keep what works & change what doesn't.”

In the subsequent months, a lot of people have pointed out a lot of dumb things. The “idiotic limitations on how many tweets you can view,” the blue check “apocalypse,” the sharp rise in hate speech (and Musk’s threat to sue those pointing it out) and, perhaps most “dumb” of all, the move away from Twitter, one of the most recognizable brands in the world, with verbs — to “tweet” — built in, to X, a trademark owned by Meta/Facebook and/or Microsoft that nobody has heard of.?

We’re now left “posting” or “xeeting” and few appear happy with either. I was writing about whether it was a “twit” or a “tweet” back in 2009, but this is very different. What Twitter/X means has changed, and some predict Musk’s $44 billion investment to be worth almost nothing. If not now, then in years to come.??

“The most active users before Musk’s acquisition – defined as the top 20% by tweet volume – have seen a noticeable posting decline in the months after,” a Pew Research study found. A blue check is seen as a negative rather than a positive, and users are said to be increasingly looking for alternatives. I know, you’ve heard this one before. Musk destroyed Twitter, so beloved by the media set. But what happens if Musk is right??

He redefined banking for the digital age, redefined the automotive industry for the electric age, and redefined the space industry for the commercial age and the “New Space Race.” Is it possible that all this could be growing pains in setting up social media for the post-social age? Despite the impossibility of the “super app” for Western audiences, could X end up… super??

Yes, this could come across as contrarianism, but there could be a method to this madness.?

The web, the social web, and, well, society as a whole are in flux (more on that in a few weeks) as Big Tech battles with Big Government and the age of many-to-many social media is coming to an end. We’re all struggling with what the metaverse might mean, what quantum computing will actually do, and what the next stage of the web —? web 3.0—? actually will change for people in practice.

Facebook’s user base in the U.S. has been falling since 2018, Gitnux market data found; Instagram is seen as becoming a place for older generations, and TikTok isn’t so much a social network as a way to consume video. It’s more akin to Netflix or to YouTube than to how Twitter/X and Facebook have been used. Young people spend more time on TikTok than they do watching TV, DJS research found, and you’re watching or creating rather than communicating.?

The actually social networks are connecting people with people —? primarily Snapchat and Discord. Snapchat, despite staying relatively under the radar, continues to grow, from 186 million active users at the end of 2018 to nearly 400 million now. Web 3.0 is likely to mean there are more streams of content, but for social media, it means connecting smaller groups of people with common interests together rather than millions of people to one or two influencers.?

And here’s where Musk’s move might be clever: Twitter was already struggling. In a piece written in 2019, Forbes’ Kalev Hannes Leetaru wrote: “Twitter is fading. Fast. In the last six years, it has dropped by 100 million tweeting users per day.”?

Musk’s history is built on defying the critics and building the impossible. He has a knack for building the future before the present is quite ready for it. PayPal was considered one of the worst business ideas of 1999, as Musk was kicked out as CEO of the merging X.com while on honeymoon.?

Musk had to pay staff and expenses out of his own pocket at Tesla before any car was released (while the then-Tesla CEO and co-founder learned he was removed via email… see a pattern?) because no investor thought Tesla would amount to anything.?

Musk and new X CEO Linda Yaccarino have big plans:

“X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities,” Yaccarino tweeted/xeeted/posted/whatevered.??

“Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine. For years, fans and critics alike have pushed Twitter to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfill our great potential. X will do that and more. We’ve already started to see X take shape over the past 8 months through our rapid feature launches, but we’re just getting started.”

The license for crypto payments was granted earlier this week, and the outline of what’s coming is really taking shape.?

Could this idea of a super-app — one app for payments, food ordering, social networking, broadcast messaging, and everything else like WeChat has in China — really be the next “impossible” thinking that comes true??

“A super-app is a pie-in-the-sky idea,” social media expert Matt Navarra tells Newsweek. “It’s not going to get anywhere near a reality any time soon. I’m not optimistic about him being able to transform it into a multibillion-user platform or even a single-billion-user platform. The biggest chance is still Threads, but there are still big question marks over that.

“Short-term to medium-term, there’s no chance of anything noteworthy coming out of X that will cause us to have a u-turn on our beliefs.”?

Oh.?

Musk has himself admitted that half of X’s value has been “destroyed,” blaming the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for “falsely accusing it and me of being antisemitic.” X was approached for a comment on this and other questions raised in this article. An automated response said: “We'll get back to you soon.”?

But what happens if Elon is right??

There is a significant gap in the social landscape for connecting people with other people. Once connected, there’s Snapchat, Discord, WhatsApp and others for private messaging. For mass broadcasts, Instagram and TikTok are used by billions. It is that space in between — easy to spot but tricky to define — where people can meet new people that the opportunity exists.?

If X gets that right and pushes podcasts, TV shows, payments, and a marketplace through that same platform, it becomes the model for others to follow. The problem is that it feels like Facebook Dating, Facebook Marketplace, and Facebook Watch with a different name.?

“Most of the things he [Musk] calls innovations are just rehashings of ideas that have been tried before,” Navarra says.?

“There’s an audience for Elon’s Twitter/X. But it’s only got a small appeal to a very specific existing Twitter/X user and it will probably drag in the type of user that will typically hang out on Truth Social or any ‘alt’ platform.”

So what happens if Elon Musk is right about Twitter/X??

A lot of analysts will be left red-faced, and how social media integrates with the rest of the web will be changed forever.?

Is it possible? If Musk’s track record is anything to go by, impossible is not impossible. But Musk’s track record so far has not included social media. And that, in a list of big hurdles, could be the biggest hurdle of all.?

The questions we still don’t have answers to after researching this article: (all musings/questions/opinions welcome to [email protected] if you think you know the answers)?

1. If Elon is right, why have all previous attempts been wrong? Every social network has tried a marketplace, most have tried payments, and every “pivot to video” has quickly passed. What’s different this time??
2. Can nearly every analyst be wrong? Research for this piece began thinking that there wasn’t a consensus on Twitter/X’s future. As far as mainstream expert opinion, there isn’t much of a dissenting voice.
3. How long can X/Twitter sustain without advertising? Navarra told us that advertisers aren’t returning, and Musk has said previously that the risk of bankruptcy is real. Can it be held up until this plan has a chance of having a chance?