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Notes -
What if running a social media platform — that both turns a profit and does good for society — has a higher degree of difficulty than rocket science? I mean, rocketry demands deep understanding of the laws of physics, knowledge that few people have, but nonetheless knowledge that exists in a formally verifiable sense. Meanwhile, the laws of social science haven’t yet been well-defined, if they exist.
With 50% confidence, I estimate that Elon Musk has hit the “Peter Principle” — “Every manager rises to their level of incompetence.”
My reasoning: Mr Musk has a particularly unique perspective on the value of Twitter because he, even before he ever considered buying it, extracts more value from it than anyone else, perhaps excluding pre-ban Donald Trump.
While Tesla’s competitors have multi-million dollar advertising budgets, Elon Musk’s use of Twitter to promote Tesla (and SpaceX and the rest of his portfolio) works better and has historically cost him $0.
Certainly, Mr Musk has company in the set of people who derive “monetary value” (as distinguished from “entertainment value”) from Twitter. Most of his contemporaries in the tech industry — CEOs, investors — would happily pay $800/mo for Twitter. And NGO execs, journalists, “public intellectual” academics, and politicians who can expense the cost to their institutions will likewise follow suit.
But just how many members of the public actually derive significant value from using Twitter? I think that for many, Twitter usage gets thought of as “time-wasting while bored” or “compulsive behavior” or even “addiction”. Given a demand to pay in order to get any attention, I think that many people will feel grateful that they have been nudged in the direction of disengagement. But of course, I may be wrong, hence why I chose to write out my thoughts and share them with this thoughtful community.
Almost certainly. In fact, running a social network that does good for society may be intractable alone, putting profit aside.
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