1y ago

Mastodon Usage Soaring as Twitter Rebranding Leads to User Exodus: CEO Eugen Rochko

asumetech.com /mastodon-usage-soaring-as-twitter-rebranding-leads-to-user-exodus-ceo-eugen-rochko/

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The other stuff didn't bother people enough to leave, but rebranding? That's the step too far. Anyway Mastodon usage has fluctuated a good amount over the last few months so I don't think that's a good metric for people fleeing Twitter, or should I say X (what a terrible name).
Twitter's value was in its branding as the case with any ubiquitous product. There was zero reason to change it other than to further damage the entity. Fine with me Elon, go ahead and kill it, one more failed corporate driven media site. We don't need any of them.
- Could be the straw that broke the camel's back.
  I actually hate rebranding by itself too. I see a totally new name as just trying to escape their bad name, likely earned by their previous misdeeds.
  
  <cough>
  alphabet
  <cough>
  
  <cough>
  meta
  Fucking allergies, geez.
  
  Pretty sure both of those were for financial reasons (easier reporting requirements etc). As in, both Google and Facebook the companies still exist, it's just that they are now owned (along with other companies such as Waymo and Instagram etc) by Alphabet and Meta respectively.
- Yeah, I really don't get why people would care much about branding. It's everything leading up to that that's starting to wear people out.
  
  Don't underestimate the value of a brand. One of the most common reasons people stick around even after negative change is because it still feels familiar and safe.
  Now? This isn't Twitter anymore. It may look and feel like Twitter did yesterday, but this is the moment where people stop and look around and ask "What happened?"
  Even when Facebook reformed into Meta and Google reformed into Alphabet, they still kept the old brands, to the point where people still call Alphabet "Google" more often than not. Other companies, when they want to get rid of a brand, will slowly phase it out. An ISP like Charter becomes Charter Spectrum, then over time just become Spectrum.
  Dropping a brand overnight like a hot potato upsets the customer because brand identity is (tragically) huge in the modern day.
  
  Now? This isn’t Twitter anymore. It may look and feel like Twitter did yesterday, but this is the moment where people stop and look around and ask “What happened?”
  I think this is the main thing. It's like, why draw so much attention to this thing that people liked fine before and which you want to mutate into some sort of hypermonetized cyberpunk dystopia omninetwork? Changing the name to something vague and edgelord is like a big giant sign that says, "REEVALUATE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THIS APP RIGHT NOW!"
  
  It's also the most noticeable for the common user. You can ignore an entire logo change (one that sucks by the way)
  
  Oh God have you met people? When people talk about their tweeting, the neurochemical feedback mechanism is "oh wow you tweet?" It's filled with positive cultural context.
  If that response becomes "wtf is twxing?" that entire zeitgeist just collapses and people will view the service with active repulsion. Like a toy they've grown their identity out of. Or a cringe dress they wore to their sibling's wedding.
- Everybody has a breaking point, right? This could have been the breaking point for many people.
  
  I'm looking at this as “various little breaking points” some very trivial, but when taken as a whole, could break someone's tolerance, causing someone to be an eX-user.
  
  Everybody has a breaking point, right? This could have been the breaking point for many people.
  Something that literally makes no difference, like a name change?
  
  No difference to you. If indeed people left because of that then it made a difference by definition.
  
  There's a reason McDonald's isn't called Kroc's.
  
  If McDonald’s changed their name it works make no difference at this stage.
  
  I don't think you understand how important branding is.
  https://klintmarketing.com/35-rebranding-fails/
  
  I do, but it’s irrelevant when a company has 500 million users.
  
  Those examples I showed you are companies the size of Twitter. It affected sales in a major way. Many of them had to walk it back.
- At this point I am pretty convinced he's doing it on purpose. I don't quite understand why, except maybe as a weird flex. Or maybe the world's billionaires got together and decided to kill Twitter because they hate all the negative press? IDK, but the whole thing is just too surreal.
  
  It is surreal that a single capitalist can be motivated to take down a monolith like Twitter. Yeah I'm convinced it's intentional. Funny when I first heard he bought Twitter for the price he paid my initial thought was he's buying it to kill it, but then I thought nobody would waste that kind of money on a personal vendetta. I guess Elon is just that crazy.
  
  The Saudis personal vendetta...
  Twitter is an important tool for social uprisings and the Saudis are just one of many that would like to see it gone.

304 comments