• z00s@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Sure it’s his money but does anyone else feel legitimately frustrated at all the good that this money could have done?

    Rich dudes have always had vanity projects, but there is no grand concert hall or library or university to come out of this. Just a ruined company with millions of wasted hours of effort. For nothing.

    • pgx@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The nice thing about our economic system is that value is rarely completely destroyed, the money he paid for Twitter didn’t cease to exist, it went to former Twitter shareholders.

      They may be using it in more productive ways than he ever would.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They may be using it in more productive ways than he ever would.

        They use it to reinvest and hoard. Because that’s what the investor class does, which is why they’re useless.

        • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Just to add a little explanation to those who don’t get it: the man-hours spent by people working for then Twitter now X as well as resources used, uktimatelly for producing no wealth, could’ve instead been spent for something that did produce wealth.

          Same amount of input money either way, but one produces wealth (in the economic sense of the word rather than merelly monetary) and the other just wastes manpower and resources.

          • pgx@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            There has been value generated by Twitter that will outlive it though.

            They established and refined an interface that other ventures like blue sky and mastodon are utilizing, and they delivered open source frameworks like Bootstrap will long outlive Twitter, and have brought value to the broader web development ecosystem.

            • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I was just explaning the concept of a “broke window falacy” (funilly enough without using the actual example that gave the name to it) and how work merelly being done is not a gain and can actually be a loss because of the opportunity cost (i.e. the people and the resources could otherwise have been used elsewhere and actually produce something of worth).

              Also I was just thinking about the Musk-era Twitter rather than the entire Twitter timeline.

              As you correctly point out, Bootstrap is something of worth (I would be more hesitant on the “interface” side, as I worked in web interfaces back when they started and that stuff is just derivative and not especially great).

        • ddh@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          Consider whether Twitter was stifling some other growth. If you buy and burn down an advertising billboard, letting light into a market garden–perhaps that is beneficial.

    • Rubanski@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Definitely prefer the vanity projects of the past. Libraries, city halls etc

      • MajorHavoc@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah. X makes various things named “Rockafeller” seem downright “not a dumpster fire” in contrast.

    • mPony@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      millions of wasted hours of effort. For nothing.

      aah, Social Media in a nutshell.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It doesn’t work that way. Almost all of the money in the world is debt owed to someone else. Very few things are bought with cash. It is really credit on credit on credit on credit. And all of that depends on trust. My company gets product from your company today with the promise to pay in a month, your company does the same…

        When events like the Twitter buyout and burn happen it weakens trust. Which weakens credit. Which means the virtual money is gone.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Could have just bought land in Kentucky and sat on it. Made a nature preserve. Give the beavers and deer a place to chill for a century or more. Pretty lazy way to do charity but it still would have been better.

    • Sarcastik@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Hyperloop, boring tunnels, sending cars to space, etc

      Stop me when you’ve heard enough to believe this guy has obvious disdain for all of us.