AEfx
Well-Known Member
That's the thing, though -- Twitter was never as big as you'd think. It never had anywhere near as many users as Facebook, e.g., and I'm pretty sure it was never even one of the 10 largest social media sites.
It did get a lot of buy in from companies, governments, etc. as a place to send out information, as you mentioned, but now that they're starting to pull back on that it's hard to see where the future is for Twitter/X when younger people aren't interested.
But see, that's just it - the user count is largely irrelevant in the case of Twitter - it's who is subscribed, and the reach it has that way that is important. I haven't had a Twitter account in many years, but I see "tweets" all the time. A huge portion of "news" on the internet comes from there (both in internet-only and also mainstream news). The other social media platforms are also much more opt-in based to see content - up until recently you didn't have to login or follow anyone to search Twitter feeds, so they are more "public" in that way (which is why I believe they pulled some that back). In any case, it's kind of mind-boggling how much of what we consume for news articles and media is based or sourced from Twitter.
I think the companies like Disney, etc. have realized that they don't really need the advertising on social media nearly as much as the "be all, end all" they thought it was a few years ago, and they also don't like stepping into the backlash that causes. It doesn't help their bottom lines, it only really can harm it by being part of it all to begin with due to the liability caused by being part of the discussion, no matter what the topic.