Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
This week, both our winners on the insightful side come in response to our post about Elon Musk's new API pricing plan for Twitter. The first place winner is actually a response to the second place winner, so we'll present them in reverse order. First off, in second place, it's James Burkhardt responding to Twitter's marketing-speak around the move that emphasizes the value of accessing Twitter's data:
I feel like this shows us something about how Musk misunderstands twitter. He vaguely understands that the ability to look at twitter with the API can be valuable, but only in this passive function, as a data set. He fundamentally misunderstands that twitter isn't a revenue center for most of its users. He fundamentally misunderstands that having users and content is twitters draw. And he fundamentally misunderstands that while he needs users to drive ads and he needs content to drive twitter's value to users, his competitors invite that content for free.
In first place, it's Thad with a reply to that comment:
Stephen King explained this to him at the outset. I'm providing value to you; if anything, you should be paying me." (I'm paraphrasing but it was something like that.)
It's a variation on the old canard that users aren't customers, they're the product. Musk can't understand that and refuses to believe it when people explain it to him. He's weirdly determined to squish Twitter into an economic model that it really doesn't fit at all.
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from Ninja in response to one of the few people who defend Netflix's password-sharing crackdown on the basis that people should pay for what they use":
I already pay for 4 screens and have been using it like that for years?
Next, we head to one of our posts about DoNotPay and the investigations into it by Kathryn Tewson, where Kathryn arrived in the comments to respond to an accusation of possible conflict of interest (which also suggested DoNotPay is free):
Hi there! Thanks for your interest. Just wanted to clear a few things up:
- DoNotPay isn't free. It costs $18/month, and the first two months are billed up front. The site does not offer free trials.
- The law firm I work for did not pay me to do this and nobody, client or otherwise, was billed for this investigation time.
- To put it mildly, I am not concerned about the World's First Robot Attorney" putting me or any other legal profession out of work.
If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to take a swing at them for ya!
Over on the funny side, both our winners once again come in response to Musk's Twitter API plans. In first place, it's Keroberos who dove in with the first comment on the post:
Hey now, if driving away all the advertisers, users, and third party developers - and completely destroying Twitter in the process gets rid of those pesky bots, it's a small price to pay. Our boy Elon (being such a big brain, smarty-pants, capable of playing 12D chess), must surely be working from home grand multi-step plan that will become crystal clear to us normies at some point. Right?
In second place, it's That One Guy who was only a few minutes behind:
Musk: Let all bask in my brilliance, now that app developers have to pay to increase the value of my platform our money troubles are over!
Five seconds later
What do you mean they're ditching Twitter and shifting focus to other platforms rather than pay extortionate rates for the privilege of enriching me, who could have ever seen that coming?!
For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with one more comment from That One Guy, this time in response to another funny comment suggesting that, with all our headlines about ridiculous things Trump does, it might be easier to write about the things he does that aren't ridiculous:
List of Non-Ridiculous Things America's Biggest Loser Has Done, to be updated as appropriate:
1) Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Finally, it's Stephen T. Stone with a response to a comment about Twitter being sued for not paying rent:
I guess running a social media service ain't rocket science. Then again, neither is being the CEO of a company literally dedicated to rocket science.
That's all for this week, folks!