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Ah, so now he wants you to produce free content for his dying, unstable platform, after threatening you, on a whim, to shut off your free access. I see.
In response, I will be discontinuing all my projects that rely on Twitter's API, and I advise you all to do the same, rather than let him decide their fate.
Oh, that's right, he did the same thing when he started firing people and driving them away, only to realize he actually needs them. Hmm.
https://futurism.com/panicked-elon-musk-begging-engineers-not-to-leave
And hey, if your livelihood depends on Twitter API, I get it, this sounds like good news. But your business is not saved, you just bought a bit more time. You should really start thinking about your exit strategy before he changes his mind again.
"Max"t
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@stefan It's almost as if...he doesn't actually know what the fuck he is doing...
@MaxPow3r11 Yep. Stepping into anything his company produced, be it a car, a rocket, or a really long tunnel is a deathwish.
@stefan oh well, mister free speech absolutist will make judgement calls on what content is "good" enough to access his special barebones API. No thanks.
@stefan Speaking of strategy, Musk's seems to be nothing more than "Fuck around and find out". How can entrepreneurs sleep at night if they're building their aforementioned livelihood on such a shaky foundation?
@stefan We're going to pay to keep our unreleased extension active, because it will be useful in promoting the next migration exodus. But it's hardly part of our business model. That's all shifting to the fedi, now. We mostly post content there first (or only) now.
@shoq Yeah, I'd probably do the same, begrudgingly.
@stefan There's also that small but real chance that Elmo bails out, and:
a) declares bankruptcy, or
b) takes my advice and donates the whole Twitter enterprise to a nonprofit and writes off his $20 billion personal loss
In either case, it could end up in the hands of more competent stewards, and if that happens, I'll want my personal account (and extension) to reemerge.
It's a longshot, but still a plausible outcome of this tragic farce.
@shoq Definitely. Personally, I'd love to see the social web move towards the fediverse model.
Honestly, I'd love it if Twitter just got sold and the new owner decided to follow Tumblr and Flickr and make it compatible with fediverse. I'm not a purist and I do accept that most people prefer convenience and ease of use. But the rest of us shouldn't be held hostage.
@stefan @shoq I think Musk passing Twitter off to someone else, a person on (preferably) a group who's a lot less divisive, is willing to walk back his egregious policies, maybe a non-profit in some way, is probably the best possible outcome now.
(the best outcome for Twitter, for the world it might be better for it to just die, the energy around Mastodon right now is instructive: when a huge corporation drives folk away, the public good potentially benefits)
Yep, but as unlikely as it is desirable.
@rodneylives @stefan @shoq So the "best" version is still the same rotting status quo with web centralization in hands of few megacorps, with ads, manipulative algorithms and promoting unhealthy dynamics for oligarchs' profits? Why the hell any site or service should last forever?! Scenario with immortal corporations treating users as products until the end of the world sounds like the most dystopian nightmare.
@madargon @rodneylives @stefan
It feels like you missed the 2nd half of his post. I think he mostly agrees with you. But there is an argument to made that 350 million users with 1.5 decades of history and fraternity there, might like a more graceful transition than "if you don't like my little fascist friends, you can just GTFO." A nonprofit owner could and probably would transition it to ActivityPub.
@shoq @rodneylives @stefan Yes, it was mostly for first part.
And you are right innocent users of any service don't deserve random bans, data loss or the rest of this mess. Some kind of systemic change is needed, as you said, more non-profit orgs in web controlling communication services, interoperability - EU like talk about this but is it possible they would change anything for better?
@martinsfp @Edent Definitely feeling a lot less fomo these days.
@stefan Before I expanded the image, I read that as "white-only" and was not at all surprised.
@ricardoharvin That's Twitter 3.0, probably.
@stefan And of course, if one *did* decide to produce free content, maybe even really pour some time and energy and even a little of one's heart and soul into a bot they cared about... could one have any confidence that Musk wouldn't just change his mind *again* next week?
I understand Mastodon supports bots, too. And it seems like a much healthier, more stable platform to write for.
@kagan Absolutely. It says enough that Twitter's most dedicated users call it the "hell site". So glad to be part of something positive that people can get excited about.
@stefan Are there birdsite bots which produce content that is not free?
@kevin I'm not really aware of that, but he's just rambling, as usual.
@stefan Interesting, so I can write a bot that asks ChatGPT to write me a clever tweet 1000s times a second and post them for free on the bird site filling it up with useless drivel? Cool. I guess not much different than what it is filled with anyway. 
Your bot has to tweet "good" content however. ChatGPT might be a bit too "woke" to qualify
https://futurism.com/conservatives-furious-claiming-chatgpt-has-gone-woke
Musk will ban any bot spreading "the woke mind virus"
You're more likely to avoid being personally banned by Elon if you used GPT-4chan
@stefan he’s the world’s most childish authoritarian. He always backs down with “well as long as it’s ‘good’ content, we’ll allow it”. He remains completely out of his depth with all this and the Fediverse is better for it.
@stefan I love that there’s an “Actually Verified” badge now
@stefan Ah man, you had my hopes up that they had once again redesigned the verification experience
Nice extension though!
@mrjonno We're still in the early days for Mastodon/fediverse, and I am very hopeful about its future. Excited to be here and help it grow!
@stefan
Nice one. 
I was hesitant to begin with but totally on board and supportive now.
@stefan Yes!
In fact, let’s all take it a step further and stop using Twitter completely.
@stefan I don't want to hate Elon, but if money was the problem. They can just tell 3rd party clients. "Hey we need to monetize this, if you want to have access stop deleting adds" 
@stefan Also: no he won't, he just came up with this idea in the middle of the night without consulting anybody, this won't happen.
@seldo Yeah, I already came to terms with giving up on Twitter and I'm not going to be baited into sticking around based on this guy's hollow promises.
I definitely understand folks who rely on Twitter for their income, which I thankfully don't, so I think those of us who can, should finally say goodbye and make it easier for the rest to follow.
@stefan I think the feedback came from a cat bot account. Maybe having a cat-related account is the key to influence here.
@Noupside That is actually a really nice bot, not surprised it can change people's minds.
@stefan oh I’m not knocking it! That one is great and I think many artsy and humor bots are a welcome addition to the platform. They already have a “good bot” label too.
I was mostly making a snarky allusion to the other influential 
account that drives product these days.
@Noupside Oh yeah, I understood, just giving folks following along a bit more context.
@stefan IMHO, this is the right move on your part.
@stefan who are the deranged people still on that app?
Elon says he is going to enable a free "light write-only API for bots providing good content..."
Who decides what "good content" is? Elon.
Be a good bot or I pull the plug. Just more extortion of censorship.
@stefan As if anyone would trust the maroon at this point.
@stefan Thank you for that 
Let's all stop feeding the bird dictator 
@stefan you are a very smart man
@cwizprod1 I have my moments!
@stefan Putting your livelihood in the hands of an impulsive manchild is inadvisable.
@stefan AKA he wants to arbitrarily ban stuff like Movetodon without people being mad at him
@stefan Plus if I read this and other tweets from him correctly, his "free version" will still cost being blue check verified.
So about $100 to $130ish bucks per year PER BOT.
Plus I'd guess write-only would nuke any interactive helpful bots that would need read-access too.