Brand recognition is monetizable when you can apply it to other products. People like Apple computers; plop the logo on a phone and they’ll be predisposed to buy an Apple phone.
But Twitter doesn’t sell anything else. There aren’t going to be any Twitter-branded products that try to monetize the brand. So what’s the value of the brand lost by changing the name to “X”?
I mean if you did withdraws down below the amount in your account and then paid overdraft fees, who’s fault is that? If you want to spend money you don’t have use a credit card.
then they processed the big one first (even though it was the last) then processed the small ones after and then they didn’t charge one overdraft fee, but multiple.
Yes, as per the explicit terms of your account agreement.
also there is the obvious case of the 2008 financial crisis
Yes, where a lot of people took out loans they knew they wouldn’t be able to repay.
One of the things I think is really unusual about Twitter is how bifurcated the user base used to be. I don’t think we understood exactly how until the verification thing.
On the one side, you’ve got people like me, the regular Twitter users; I followed a mix of people I knew professionally, people who were media figures, and then just random-ass accounts who were doing tweets I liked. I don’t pay for Blue, I don’t really care who’s “verified”, since that just meant “I work for a blog or a corporation” and advertising content is irritating and I avoid it if I can. Overall when Musk took over it didn’t change my experience at all, except that all of the media accounts I followed started complaining nonstop and it just got tedious and now I follow a lot fewer of them. One thing that’s changed is that “For You” is a lot better than “Following” since Musk re-did the algorithm (used to be the other way) and now I’m on the “For You” tab about 100% of the time. It’s more fun and more interesting.
On the other side you’ve got media Twitter users. The people for whom verification was a free perk of the job, people for whom the algorithm just showed them their peers affirming their content rather than any critical perspective, and who really have experienced a sea change in their Twitter experience. But largely what they’re complaining about is that their Twitter experience is now more like how mine always was. I think this is what people are talking about when they say “TPOT”, or “This Part of Twitter.”
So I guess what I’m getting at is that there used to be two Twitter “brands”; there was the one I knew, which hasn’t changed and probably won’t; and there was the one you knew if you were employed in the media in some capacity, where that experience probably has substantially degraded since now they’re forced to have interactions outside of TPOT. I think when people in the media say “Musk ruined Twitter”, or “X destroyed the Twitter brand”, that’s what they’re talking about because Twitter as they knew it is gone.
But for most people, people like me, Twitter is the same as its ever been. Little mini-posts from people who have interesting things to say.
What? No, Coca-cola has new products every fucking year. Several times a year. Literally two months ago they launched “Coca-Cola Y3000 Zero Sugar”, a flavor supposedly created by “AI”. And just knowing that Coca-Cola launched it, you probably have an idea what it tastes like. That’s what branding does. But Twitter doesn’t do any of that, because again, they don’t launch new products. They have one product and they’ll always have one product.
Twitter isn’t losing users, it’s gaining them. They may be losing advertisers but “branding” doesn’t really have anything to do with that. Advertisers go where the eyeballs are, brands are otherwise meaningless to them.
But most of us know not to use Cheque leaves for transaction purposes (You get fined, if you end up encashing a cheque when your balance cannot cover the Cheque amount)
Wow, that sucks. Maybe you should talk to your bank about getting some kind of protection against a check being returned NSF and paying a massive-ass fine.