Elon Musk says Twitter's cash flow still negative as ad revenue drops

https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musk-says-twitters-cash-flow-still-negative-ad-revenue-drops-2023-07-15/

18 25 3 years ago

jdjdjdhhd• 3 years ago

Usage up 3.5% week over week but revenue declining (according to Musk)

ecf2• 3 years ago

Seems like they’re successfully pandering to an audience that 1) Doesn’t want to pay and 2) advertisers don’t want to advertise to.

Wonder what that type of audience might be comprised of.

jqpabc1236• 3 years ago

And 3) advertisers don't want their product associated with.

An online forum like Twitter is rather unique in that the audience also helps *define* the medium.

Imagine a TV equivalent of Twitter defined by "freedom of expression" --- where random members of the audience are allowed to take to the stage and "freely" say or do whatever craziness they want without restriction.

How long would advertisers support this free for all?

Avshalom• 3 years ago

Users went from being able to read 600 posts a day to 800 posts a day (or maybe it's fully relaxed?) in that week over week.

3cats-in-a-coat5• 3 years ago

Went to 1000. But I don’t think there is any meaningful limit right now. Like most things Elon does on Twitter, this was reverted within 2 days. However the login wall is still mostly there. That surely has continued impact.

jqpabc1236• 3 years ago

as add revenue drops

The fundamental disconnect in Musk's business plan --- advertising is really not about "free speech" but rather the opposite.

Otherwise, Twitter shouldn't charge for it and advertiser's wouldn't be fleeing.

Offering a soapbox to extremists demonstrates a lack of focus and understanding of the nature of the business he bought into.

3cats-in-a-coat5• 3 years ago

Clearly, his CEO also doesn’t have his ear on it, either, despite she is an advertising expert. All the stupid things that Twitter was doing before her, have continued seamlessly after her.

jqpabc1236• 3 years ago

Twitter is very different from Musk's other businesses. Technology is involved ... but only as an enabler, not as the primary objective.

In order to become profitable, the primary objective of Twitter should be to create a medium that is attractive to advertisers.

This is not inherently a technical problem. You can't solve this by firing a bunch of people and threatening the rest. Inviting extremists and goof balls to the stage for some politically oriented "free speech" won't do it either.

For the first time in his business career, "success" is not about doing what Musk wants and stroking his ego. And he is not handling it well.

Bottom line: Advertising is not the ideal business for a "free speech absolutist". Watching Musk with all his wealth slowly and painfully come to this simple realization is actually kinda entertaining ... or maybe I'm just as disturbed and egotistical as he is.

Zigurd2• 3 years ago

She just got her desk set up. And is wondering why it is sliding toward a glass cliff.

ModernMech3• 3 years ago

Offering a soapbox to extremists demonstrates a lack of focus

Why doesn’t anyone consider, given what he’s done with Twitter, that turning it into a soapbox to extremists was the whole point? He obviously is very sympathetic to far right ideology and sees himself as a warrior, a general even, of right wing culture wars.

Seems to me that Elon Musk and all his transphobic, anti democracy, pro Putin, MAGA fans want to turn the USA into an apartheid state like Musk’s home country.

It’s the only rational lens that makes sense. Anything else requires Musk to have been bamboozled, or to be an abject idiot. I’m willing to go along with the latter explanation, but I think it’s not the whole story.

jqpabc1236• 3 years ago

turning it into a soapbox to extremists was the whole point?

Maybe so. Political propaganda is sure to alienate at least half the audience so a 50% drop in revenue makes perfect sense.

ecf2• 3 years ago

Revenue dropping while simultaneously implementing a revenue sharing scheme for influencers? It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off for ‘em.

3cats-in-a-coat5• 3 years ago

If it doesn't make sense, look closer until it does.

The distributed amount is $5 million. That's not a lot by Twitter standards, they have 500k users, so that's $10 per user average.

However the money only goes to accounts which are large enough (5m impressions in 3 months or something), have a Stripe account, are in specific countries, and most importantly, approved by Twitter, which somehow resulted in approval of all the accounts Elon personally is communicating with, all his buddies pushing Tesla investors news, talking about how he's a genius, his rightwing buddies, even Andrew Tate somehow, and select minor celebrities which have also repeatedly announced they like Elon.

Currently Twitter is intensely distributing emails to their users, urging them to sign up for Twitter Blue, so they "don't miss out" on the revenue sharing program:

https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1680185572730478592

This is a classic "pay fee to claim award" scam. The vast majority of these accounts will hopelessly be trying to get the impressions they need, and be approved by Twitter, and never will be.

But only 50k new subscribers will cover the cost of these $5 million distributed to the top brass.

Clearly Elon believes he can get hundreds of thousands to sign-up for Twitter Blue at the hope of getting money. Give money to get money.

Are there that many gullible users? I don't know. I think everyone gullible on Twitter is already a subscriber so this will fail, as well.

gary_0• 3 years ago

"There's a sucker born every minute." - PT Barnum

3cats-in-a-coat5• 3 years ago

Few months ago he said ad revenue dropped 50%.

Then a month ago or so he said all advertisers returned in full.

Now he's saying, today, that again ad revenue dropped 50%.

The guy is a pathological liar, you can't understand at all what's happening from his words. It's like listening to Putin's takes on reality. One day Wagner is just a myth, then he paid billions to them, then a week later they're a myth again.

This is why I watch what he does and what's happening to Twitter. And this is still one airplane nosediving directly to the ground as we speak.

r721• 3 years ago

you can't understand at all what's happening from his words

Funnily I was just poring over his tweet with usage stats (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1679992267111809024), and I find it very suspicious that some numbers are exactly the same (with 4 significant digits!)

US Mobile Latest = US Mobile 7d Avg

Japan Mobile Latest = Japan Mobile 7d Avg

There are also very close numbers:

UK Total Latest 15.36B

UK Total 7d Avg 15.37B

EU Total Latest 63.67B

EU Total 7d Avg 63.66B

Seems like an incredible coincidence if these numbers are legit.

jacquesm2• 3 years ago

I would happily bet that there is some 'keep Elon happy' code running on Twitter servers at the moment with the express goal of showing him the figures that he wants to see.

Elon Musk says Twitter's cash flow still negative as ad revenue drops

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