It’s been pretty much impossible to avoid the discourse around Twitter in recent months. Since Elon Musk purchased the platform in October 2022, a series of changes have resulted in controversy upon controversy, with many prophesying doom for the once-mighty Twitter as a result. Are all of these prophecies justified, though? Is Twitter actually dying, or are we likely to see a resurgence? Is a resurgence even necessary? Let’s take a look at the state of Twitter as a platform in 2023 and see if things are looking rosy or worrying for Elon Musk’s investment.
Twitter users are set to plummet
On the user count, Twitter’s fate isn’t looking so great. ExpressVPN looked at the opinions of analysts and the problems being faced by Twitter on the whole as a platform, pointing to a survey by Insider Intelligence that found Twitter was likely to lose more than 32 million users by 2024. The survey puts this drop down to “technical problems and controversy”, both of which Twitter still faces on a regular basis, so although the daily active user count remains high right now at around 260 million, that number is set to plummet this year, it seems.
Fake news and disinformation reign supreme
Under Elon Musk’s reign, it’s become much, much harder for Twitter to do its job when it comes to stopping fake news, disinformation, and other unpleasant social media issues. Recently, workers at Twitter apparently told the BBC that they could no longer protect users from “trolling, state-co-ordinated disinformation, and child sexual exploitation” due to changes Musk and his new regime have made. While Twitter was once seen to be making strides towards a fairer and more trustworthy social media platform, it’s now regressing, according to various analysts and insiders.
Employee counts are falling too
Since he took over in 2022, Elon Musk has made sweeping cuts to Twitter’s staff counts. The platform enjoyed a high of over 7,000 employees as of December 2020, but a recent count in February 2023 put employee numbers at around 1,800, which is a cut of almost 75%. Those cuts also appear to have coincided with an increasing number of glitches and technical problems, including users being unable to send DMs, information being stolen in a security breach, and outages. In short, due to Twitter’s diminished workforce, it’s looking like the platform can’t keep up with the phenomenal demand of running such a huge website anymore.
Twitter Blue started off shaky, but it’s gaining ground
You may remember the introduction of Twitter Blue, Elon Musk’s controversial new approach to the “blue tick” on Twitter. When it was originally launched, Twitter said it would allow anyone who wanted to become verified to do so by paying a small subscription fee each month. This was, of course, met with a huge amount of resistance and pushback; the blue tick was seen as a mark of authenticity and trustworthiness, and allowing anyone to pay for it would essentially plunge Twitter back into the Dark Ages in terms of the verifiability of its celebrities and “noted” accounts.
Following this change and the resulting controversy, a new system was eventually arrived at. The blue checkmark is now for those who pay an $8 monthly fee, and they’ll gain access to longer tweets, lower ad counts, and longer videos. Yellow checkmarks now point to verified companies, while grey checkmarks point to verified governmental accounts. It’s hard to argue that this approach isn’t actually superior to Twitter’s original across-the-board blue checkmarks (although there’s now no clear verification mark for an individual), and the new Twitter Blue system has been positively received by many, in stark contrast to the original implementation.
The Twitter API is no longer free
This one’s a little nerdy, so bear with us. The Twitter API, which is a protocol that many third-party services depend on for basic functionality, is no longer free to access. Twitter says that it has introduced paid API tiers in order to combat bots and other malicious entities, but this change also means that services like social media automation won’t work unless the companies responsible for those services pay a fee to Twitter.
While this certainly won’t necessitate a mass exodus to other platforms, it has made things more difficult for services that rely on the Twitter API for implementation. This has made many business owners angry with Twitter, although if Twitter retains its current level of popularity, it’s hard to see an alternative for those businesses, unfortunately.
Elon Musk isn’t banking on Twitter as the endgame.
While all of the above problems certainly don’t exactly inspire confidence for Twitter, Elon Musk doesn’t seem to be too worried about them anyway. According to Musk, the eventual end goal isn’t even Twitter as a standalone platform but rather something he’s currently calling “X”.
In characteristic fashion for Musk, “X” is a massively ambitious undertaking that he’s calling the “everything app”. Musk wants X to take care of everything for its users in a similar way to the Chinese app WeChat, which can be used for chatting, payments, and food deliveries, among other things.
Whether or not Musk can actually pull this off remains to be seen. There are reasons both to have faith in his business acumen and to doubt it, so we’re going to have to wait and see what this unpredictable, mercurial businessman has up his sleeve when it comes to Twitter and the platform’s future.
It’s clear that despite the problems faced by Twitter right now, the platform’s high daily user count and continuing cultural relevance mean that Twitter is not “over” by any stretch of the imagination. However, it’ll be worth watching the platform closely to see what happens in the coming months.
