It wasn't so long ago that I looked upon Elon Musk with admiration. Maybe even with a bit of adoration.
After all, his Space X Starlink satellite internet system had rescued me and my wife from the hell of 7Mbps CenturyLink DSL, bringing our rural south Salem home into broadband heaven.
And I visualized owning one of his Tesla cars someday. Though they have their downsides (don't like relying so much on a touchscreen rather than normal controls), Tesla jumpstarted the electric car revolution that's bringing the internal combustion engine closer to a well-deserved global goodbye.
When he bought Twitter, I figured he wouldn't screw it up too much. After all, Space X and Tesla are successful companies, offering innovative products and services.
But from what I've read, the difference between them and Twitter is that competent managers stood between Musk and goings-on at Space X and Tesla -- whereas so far Musk has been very hands-on with Twitter, making a string of questionable decisions that harm both Twitter and users of Twitter.
Like, me. I love Twitter. But I hate what Musk is doing to Twitter, the latest outrage occurring yesterday.
That's when third-party Twitter apps stopped working, including Tweetbot, which I've been using because it is hugely better than the official Twitter app and web site. Here's the disturbing message that now appears on Tweetbot when I try to use it on my iPhone to access my Twitter feed.
This is so typical of Elon Musk's crappy mismanagement approach. Tweetbot and the other third-party Twitter apps have been widely popular. They enable more people to use Twitter. Users of the apps generate content for Twitter.
If Musk knew what he was doing, he would have scheduled an online Zoom meeting with the people who head up the third-party Twitter apps, most or all of whom are running small businesses with just a handful of employees.
I'm sure they'd be willing to listen to whatever concerns Musk has with the third-party apps, including the fact that they don't share ads that appear on Twitter. I'd be willing to pay more for my monthly Tweetbot subscription if Musk demanded that some money go to Twitter to compensate for the lack of ads.
But no, it looks like Musk decided to just shut down the apps without notice, and so far without explanation.
Some of them are still working, including the Apple version of Fenix, which I'm using at the moment because I found the "native" Twitter app to be so horrendous, I'd rather stop using Twitter if that was my only option.
I have company.
I agree about the official Twitter app being a terrible experience. I gave it a try yesterday before I discovered Fenix.
Lots of ads. Many tweets from people I don't follow and aren't interested in following. Really confusing layout. No way I could see to tell which tweets were new and which I'd already read. All in all, a vastly less enjoyable experience than what Tweetbot and the other third-party apps offer.
After forcing myself to use the official Twitter app for a while, I got fed up and felt that if this is the only way I could use Twitter, I'd give up on Twitter. Hard to see how that benefits Twitter, but maybe Elon Musk doesn't care if he turns many off from the company he bought.
Hopefully, though, Musk will realize that making it impossible for third-party apps to access user accounts, he's harming himself and Twitter. But I'm not counting on this.
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