ThymeWayster

Really good Twitter thread originally about Elon Musk and Twitter, but also applies to Netflix and a lot of other corporations.

Full thread. Text transcription under cut.

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The thread goes on for a few more posts after that, in which he also notes that he’s never seen a company dive for the Trust Thermocline as quickly as Twitter seems to be right now, and that he’s watching a few big accounts as an indicator for when the line has been crossed.

(This thread is a few months old at this point, and he’s still there, so it apparently hasn’t quite hit the Thermocline yet, but I’m sure next week’s free API removal will help that along)

This is interesting when you compare it to the frogs in hot water theory. The theory goes that if you put frogs in a pot of hot water they’ll jump out immediately, but if you put them in lukewarm water and steadily raise the temperature, they won’t notice until it’s too late. The application being that a malicious entity will slowly change things for the worse without people taking notice until it’s too late. It’s a bit depressing because if that’s the case then we’re all slowly sliding towards terrible things and there’s nothing we can do about it because no one is paying enough attention.

But this trust thermocline gives an alternative. How it can start out the same way, but the end result is different. When people say enough is enough and stop supporting the entity doing the sliding. I’m not sure which has more weight, or whether or not they can both exist at the same time. But it is a relief to know there’s another end result possible.