Musk suggests 3 months freeze for new free-tier users

[Marees]

Elon Musk plans to charge new X users to enable posting​

Musk later added that new accounts would be able to post after three months of creation without paying a fee.

As is the case with a lot of announcements related to the social platform, there are no details at the moment about when this policy will be applicable and what fees new users might have to pay.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/15/elon-musk-plans-to-charge-new-x-users-to-enable-posting/

 

[techie81]

SPAM is taking over the world, I don't have a problem with it.

 

[polonyc2]

Musk and all his investments are headed for a crash...Tesla stock is in freefall...he better succeed with his spaceship plans

 

[Armenius]

Bots have been becoming a serious problem again in recent months, but there are bot farms that are paying the blue checkmark fee, so this is not going to stop all of them.

 

[techie81]

Musk and all his investments are headed for a crash...Tesla stock is in freefall...he better succeed with his spaceship plans

I'll go out on a limb and say Musk is pretty smart and knows what he's doing.

 

[Airbrushkid]

I once had a twitter account. But when Elon Musk bought it. I closed my account. And don't worry about it. All my info on that account was like Elon FAKE. It even didn't have my real IP.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

SPAM is taking over the world, I don't have a problem with it.

I don't think this will solve spam.

Temporarily there will likely be a dip, but then spammers will adapt, signing up for their accounts in advance.

Musk and all his investments are headed for a crash...Tesla stock is in freefall...he better succeed with his spaceship plans

Pride comes before the fall.

He had convinced himself that he could do anything, better than those who were the experts in their field, and increasingly took on investments he had no business being in.

While I don't personally mind Twitter imploding, (can he do Reddit next?) for his own good he should have known it was far outside of his area of expertise and left it alone.

Tesla is a little different. Tesla is struggling because the entire EV market i struggling. When it comes to Tesla his company really is in an EV leadership position. It's just that now Tesla has competition, so they were always going to drop a little from their uncontested leadership position. (You will never do as well as when you don't have to compete with anyone, at least not seriously) This has been exacerbated by the EV market tanking, as many of those who want EV's either already have them or can't afford them.

Tesla is further hurt by this as EV's are the only thing they make. Other automaklers can fall back on hybrid or full-ICE models while they ponder what to do next.

I tend to think that whoever makes EV's affordable (think a full size family sedan, at a $35k price tag or below) without turning them into Golf cart-like "city cars" (because no one wants that shit) is going to be the next big name in EV's. Scale back the power a bit. (no one needs face melting 0-60 in 2.9 seconds in this category) and remove many of the expensive "luxury" features, and just make a basic reliable EV that can fit a family of 4-5, and you'll have a winner.

Tesla is still uniquely positioned to be able to pull this off better than others due to their investment in battery manufacturing, but they will probably need a new brand for a low cost alternative as to not hurt the "premium" Tesla brand.

How about "Nicola, by Tesla"?

 

[Lakados]

I don't think this will solve spam.

Temporarily there will likely be a dip, but then spammers will adapt, signing up for their accounts in advance.



Pride comes before the fall.

He had convinced himself that he could do anything, better than those who were the experts in their field, and increasingly took on investments he had no business being in.

While I don't personally mind Twitter imploding, (can he do Reddit next?) for his own good he should have known it was far outside of his area of expertise and left it alone.

Tesla is a little different. Tesla is struggling because the entire EV market i struggling. When it comes to Tesla his company really is in an EV leadership position. It's just that now Tesla has competition, so they were always going to drop a little from their uncontested leadership position. (You will never do as well as when you don't have to compete with anyone, at least not seriously) This has been exacerbated by the EV market tanking, as many of those who want EV's either already have them or can't afford them.

Tesla is further hurt by this as EV's are the only thing they make. Other automaklers can fall back on hybrid or full-ICE models while they ponder what to do next.

I tend to think that whoever makes EV's affordable (think a full size family sedan, at a $35k price tag or below) without turning them into Golf cart-like "city cars" (because no one wants that shit) is going to be the next big name in EV's. Scale back the power a bit. (no one needs face melting 0-60 in 2.9 seconds in this category) and remove many of the expensive "luxury" features, and just make a basic reliable EV that can fit a family of 4-5, and you'll have a winner.

Tesla is still uniquely positioned to be able to pull this off better than others due to their investment in battery manufacturing, but they will probably need a new brand for a low cost alternative as to not hurt the "premium" Tesla brand.

How about "Nicola, by Tesla"?

Pure EVs were and are a huge long shot, it's taken decades of investment to get the petrol infrastructure to where it is, you can't just supplant that in a few years.
Additionally, the costs of the raw battery materials are not going down as expected, they build huge plants to cut down manufacturing costs, great, but raw material costs went up and more than cover the spread.
It is more economical and environmentally friendly to use a Hybrid system than a purely battery-based one, hybrid drive trains have been a thing since the 60s and are proven reliable and can easily scale up manufacturing to keep manufacturing costs lower.
Instead of providing subsidies on purely electric vehicles to try and make them affordable and competitive, it would be better spent on programs to get old beaters off the road and replaced with cleaner safer vehicles.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I'll go out on a limb and say Musk is pretty smart and knows what he's doing.

Wow, he sure does have you fooled.

While has has had an uncanny ability to invest in the right thing at the right time and be ahead of the curve (at least up until Twitter) he honestly isn't much of a pioneer or an expert.

His first company - Zip2 - was a shitty "city guide" app, funded by his daddy's apartheid mine money.

He had a lucky break when he sold it to Compaq just in time before the dotcom bust, and cashed out at an inflated $22M.

He then used that money to found X.com, an online financial service/banking company. It didn't really work out, and to avoid collapse he merged with an online bank named Confinity. He fought Confinity's CEO Peter Thiel to be the CEO of the merged entity, leading to Thiel resigning. The merged entity then went to shit under Musks leadership, until the board eventually kicked him out as CEO and replaced him with Peter Thiel. Under Thiels leadership the company made the correct choice to focus on online payments and renamed themselves to Paypal. Paypal was eventually sold to eBay for $1.5B. And that's were Musk got his serious "fuck off" money, not based on his own actions, but based on the shares he owned in Paypal which after he was ousted as CEO became very successful because of Peter Thiel. He netted some $175M from that sale.

He then farted around abit enjoying his newfound extreme wealth. He developed a passion for space exploration and started SpaceX (and later Starlink as a result) as a bit of a passion project. This is probably the only one of his ventures that he really drove to some level of success. (albeit depending largely on the people he hired, not his own space expertise)

He then made the smart decision to buy Tesla from its founders Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning just before EV's started to take off. He didn't found it, and it wasn't based on his expertise. He just kind of rode what already was in place and provided more development funding, and driving investment. If anyhting his input subtracted more than it added to the car designs. I tend to think of him a lot like a John Delorean. Flashy auto exec fraternizing with the media and pop stars, but ultimately not the guy who keeps the lights on.

At this point he had convinced himself he was the God of investment and Engineering and he could do anyhting better than those who were already doing it. He wasted a ridiculous amount of money on Twitter, and has since made decision oafter decision that has driven it to collapse in value.

He is no exceptional genius. He's just a run of the mill engineer who benefitted from having a rich dad and had a few lucky breaks in a row leading him to exceptional financial success.

There are people out there who through a combination of sheer will and capability built a business from nothing to extreme success, Musk is not one of them. He is just a kid who grew up rich, lived a cushy existence because of his dad's money, and spun that into investments into other peoples work and had a few lucky breaks. Every time he tries to take too much personal charge of something it seemingly goes to shit.

He should learn from this. He seems to have good judgment (or at least did until Twitter) when it comes to deciding what will grow in the future and investing in it, but he should probably stay hands off for his own good. He kind of has the Midas touch of poo.

 

[Armenius]

Wow, he sure does have you fooled.

While has has had an uncanny ability to invest in the right thing at the right time and be ahead of the curve (at least up until Twitter) he honestly isn't much of a pioneer or an expert.

His first company - Zip2 - was a shitty "city guide" app, funded by his daddy's apartheid mine money.

He had a lucky break when he sold it to Compaq just in time before the dotcom bust, and cashed out at an inflated $22M.

He then used that money to found X.com, an online financial service/banking company. It didn't really work out, and to avoid collapse he merged with an online bank named Confinity. He fought Confinity's CEO Peter Thiel to be the CEO of the merged entity, leading to Thiel resigning. The merged entity then went to shit under Musks leadership, until the board eventually kicked him out as CEO and replaced him with Peter Thiel. Under Thiels leadership the company made the correct choice to focus on online payments and renamed themselves to Paypal. Paypal was eventually sold to eBay for $1.5B. And that's were Musk got his serious "fuck off" money, not based on his own actions, but based on the shares he owned in Paypal which after he was ousted as CEO became very successful because of Peter Thiel. He netted some $175M from that sale.

He then farted around abit enjoying his newfound extreme wealth. He developed a passion for space exploration and started SpaceX (and later Starlink as a result) as a bit of a passion project. This is probably the only one of his ventures that he really drove to some level of success. (albeit depending largely on the people he hired, not his own space expertise)

He then made the smart decision to buy Tesla from its founders Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning just before EV's started to take off. He didn't found it, and it wasn't based on his expertise. He just kind of rode what already was in place and provided more development funding, and driving investment. If anyhting his input subtracted more than it added to the car designs. I tend to think of him a lot like a John Delorean. Flashy auto exec fraternizing with the media and pop stars, but ultimately not the guy who keeps the lights on.

At this point he had convinced himself he was the God of investment and Engineering and he could do anyhting better than those who were already doing it. He wasted a ridiculous amount of money on Twitter, and has since made decision oafter decision that has driven it to collapse in value.

He is no exceptional genius. He's just a run of the mill engineer who benefitted from having a rich dad and had a few lucky breaks in a row leading him to exceptional financial success.

There are people out there who through a combination of sheer will and capability built a business from nothing to extreme success, Musk is not one of them. He is just a kid who grew up rich, lived a cushy existence because of his dad's money, and spun that into investments into other peoples work and had a few lucky breaks. Every time he tries to take too much personal charge of something it seemingly goes to shit.

He should learn from this. He seems to have good judgment (or at least did until Twitter) when it comes to deciding what will grow in the future and investing in it, but he should probably stay hands off for his own good. He kind of has the Midas touch of poo.

That wasn't your opinion 10 years ago. I wonder what happened?

I have a lot of respect for Elon Musk. Some of the tech projects that have been able to be accomplished under his leadership have been things that traditionally were thought to be undoable, like successfully launch a new car company, or private sector space travel.

I also have a great amount of respect for Bill Gates. Admittedly not so much for his tech leadership, but rather for his amazing philanthropic contributions in the world.

That, and he's an Engineer turned CEO, which means he really understands the business his companies are in, which is actually relatively rare in the U.S.

Here, most CEO's are either lawyers or finance guys with no technical expertise, very limited understanding of the industry they operate in, treating products and services like fungible financial instruments, which they most certainly are not.

There are few things as dangerous as ignorant people who believe they know everything, especially when you put those people in leadership roles. And we wonder why we have so many corporate failures in the U.S.

IMHO, no one without a technical degree and experience has any business running a tech firm, just like no one without an advanced engineering degree has any business running an auto company.

Lawyers and Finance guys can be great leaders... ....of law Firms and Banks...

I don't know what you are on. Elon Musk is one of the most admirable men in american business, and the Tesla? Well, it is the only american car I would even consider buying unlike that GM/Ford/Chrysler garbage.