Yes, I have been absent for some time, and I will take a break at the end of this week, but here is my thought for today.
So, there we go. Finally the match we have all been waiting for has arrived. The Zuck vs Musk match of egos, power and supposedly plenty. But which one are you talking about? You ask. Well the Twitter (or should I say, X) vs Threads one. What? Did you think I was talking about the cage fight in Vegas? No, that has not been scheduled yet, at least not to the best of my knowledge.
I am sure by now you have all heard and read about Meta’s (Facebook’s parent company) launch of Threads app which looks and apparently behaves like Twitter/X. The story is that with the turmoil Twitter/X is going through at the hands of Elon, Mark decided there was an opportunity for a challenger to get a part of the pie. So we are now blessed with a Twitter/X look-alike that would allow us to write 500 words and not just 280+, and link ourselves to it through Instagram and/or Facebook.
Now it is true that Musk brought this on himself. I mean what was he doing buying Twitter for some $40+bn? Was it the billionaire's gigantic ego to own a media thing, like Jeff Bezos who bought Washington Post? Or, as I was thinking the other day, it is maybe that rich people need expensive toys to play with, and since Elon was getting bored with his businesses (that seem to be quite successful) he decided to venture into a game of «get myself a toy, break it, then spend time and be entertained in fixing it.»
I am not particularly fond of Musk, although I have much respect for his ingenuity, but I really don’t understand why anyone would want to lock him/her self even further with Meta? The company already controls people’s info through Instagram and Facebook, and now it wants to add another platform of data extraction and manipulation?
Roger Waters, the legendary co-founder of Pink Floyd, has said publicly that he does not understand how someone who initially developed a website to rate women’s looks could become one of the most powerful people on Earth. Waters also labeled him as one of the «most powerful idiots in the world». Not sure I would rank him as an idiot, but the kind of power social media holds over us is a function of the opportunities we give them, regardless of idiots or not.
Paris, July 31, 2023,
Zeejay