We've all seen the messy acquisition that was Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, and many are also aware of all the other situations that the social media platform has been subjected to. Now, those events have culminated in the company's significant drop in value.
Twitter Is Not Worth What It Was
For a bit of context, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has contemplated purchasing the bird app for quite some time. He tried to back out of the deal but ultimately ended up acquiring the company for $44 billion, which even he admitted was too high.
The tech billionaire laid out a lot of plans for the company with his ambitious goal of turning it into an "everything app" that would be valued at $250 billion someday, but every step he took to "improve" the app has done the opposite.
Twitter is now only a third of its value when Musk purchased it about six months ago, specifically 33%, as reported by Gizmodo. The estimation was based on the markdown of the stake of the financial services company, Fidelity.
Ironically, the drop in value of the company is caused by the cost-cutting and revenue-raising measures that the tech billionaire has implemented, several of which have faced backlash from both the public and business partners.
One of the earliest changes was Musk's "free speech" vision for the app, which triggered a slew of derogatory tweets from several users. This in turn causes many big advertisers to pull out of the company in fear of having their products associated with such content.
Since advertisements are Twitter's main source of revenue, the company suffered a heavy blow in its finances. The tech billionaire tried to come up with ways to make the company profitable, which led to Twitter Blue.
The Twitter Blue subscription service became required for users to have their accounts verified, and this wasn't an appealing option for legacy accounts that had their blue checkmark based on fame or influence. Of course, people also weren't too happy to pay for verification.
Twitter's API has also been placed behind a paywall, which resulted in many third-party apps severing ties with the app. A lot of Twitter users are now turning to alternatives like Mastodon or BlueSky, which is backed by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.
Should You Switch to BlueSky?
That depends. You may want to, but you might not be able to. Right now, BlueSky is limited to people who have been invited to join. Members can send you invite codes, which makes it somewhat of an exclusive version of Twitter.
According to The New York Times, the alternative app is fairly similar to Twitter. Although, the posts are called "skeets" not "tweets," which based on the reports, were derived from the tweets themselves as users combined "Sky" and "tweets."
Just a few months ago, Mastodon was crowned as the "alternative Twitter," and now it's BlueSky. Based on the shifting title, Twitter may be able to hold on for a bit more, perhaps to make things right before an actual app becomes preferred by the majority.
