This does bring to mind the question of what he paid the billions of dollars for.
He's destroyed the brand, taken out most of the infrastructure, fired most of the staff and this is going to lead to this being an everything app worth the investment in twitter rather than making his own thing?
Given his behavior, it's pretty clear he's not a logical person. No rational person would draw up as much debt as he did and burden the company you're buying with it unless you're mental. He was too prideful to admit he f'ked up and changed his mind after signing a legally binding agreement, so everything he does now is because his hatred for the brand that he was forced to buy. He most likely wants to make sure the name and imagery of Twitter is gone and eradicated out of spite so he'll never be reminded of it. The only silver lining for him is using the process of doing so to be justified through the creation of his age old obsession of creating the X "everything app" and to use the site for political points from politicians he wants to be in good with to profit off of.
This does bring to mind the question of what he paid the billions of dollars for.
He's destroyed the brand, taken out most of the infrastructure, fired most of the staff and this is going to lead to this being an everything app worth the investment in twitter rather than making his own thing?
He paid billions of dollars for the user base. How many people claiming they would abandon Twitter have actually done so? They're addicted. Until he makes the site completely unusable, people will stay, and as long as people will stay, there's some kind of profit to be made. As long as the site works, they'll keep using it, until they can't take whatever he's done with it anymore.
If he just made his own thing from the start, no one would use it. Like every other attempt at creating another Twitter, it would be dead in the water until Twitter did something so unacceptable that the majority of its user base was forced to leave. This is what happened with Discord and Skype. Sure, you had the few people here or there singing Discord's praises, but no one wanted to make the move, people were already familiar with Skype and its flaws. They knew how it worked and what to expect, and everyone else was already using it. It wasn't until outages became so common, the flaws so overwhelmingly unacceptable, that people were forced to migrate to Discord, at least until Skype was working again. Eventually, people just stopped going back to Skype, because they got used to Discord, and it wasn't down at least once a week.
He paid billions of dollars for the user base. How many people claiming they would abandon Twitter have actually done so? They're addicted. Until he makes the site completely unusable, people will stay, and as long as people will stay, there's some kind of profit to be made. As long as the site works, they'll keep using it, until they can't take whatever he's done with it anymore.
If he just made his own thing from the start, no one would use it. Like every other attempt at creating another Twitter, it would be dead in the water until Twitter did something so unacceptable that the majority of its user base was forced to leave. This is what happened with Discord and Skype. Sure, you had the few people here or there singing Discord's praises, but no one wanted to make the move, people were already familiar with Skype and its flaws. They knew how it worked and what to expect, and everyone else was already using it. It wasn't until outages became so common, the flaws so overwhelmingly unacceptable, that people were forced to migrate to Discord, at least until Skype was working again. Eventually, people just stopped going back to Skype, because they got used to Discord, and it wasn't down at least once a week.
As from what I've seen, many artists fled from Twitter to Fediverse platforms such as Mastodon and Misskey, others are also at Threads or Bluesky, some have returned Twitter but most stay. Though, most artists and normal users still stick with Twitter like you said. Average users are also too digital illiterate and averse of changes too so they may likely to return to other familar platforms (Instagram, WhatApps, Discord,...) instead of seeking alternatives when Twitter "collapses".
This also happened with Reddit when people rather protest against the API changes instead of quitting Reddit or moving to alternatives.
They're right now holding on through sheer scale and without a solid alternative to compete, so people would rather not risk bailing on it because they lose all the connections they have existing. Which is probably why Twitter deliberately added the 5-sec link delay to competing sites and prior to that outright banned links to them. It's the tangled web of connections that keep many onboard, but if more people migrate off and you can easily find them elsewhere eventually enough move that the communities begin to unravel and people move to where the other people are. Making it harder to find them elsewhere becomes essential at keeping people from leaving.
