This is an absolutely brutal and spot on analysis. This dude is great.
The overwhelming majority of this revenue was from advertising, but according to Musk’s thesis that revenue stream was garbage. He would deprioritise ads, reduce moderation, and boost the posts of people who would pay $8 a month for a blue tick.
… So if someone is posting regularly enough to be willing to pay $8 a month for a blue tick, but has not built up a sizeable following organically, this is a very strong signal that the posts they are producing are no good.
It is exactly that content that Twitter’s new model relies on promoting – and those newly-minted blue ticks are quickly learning that there is no magic behind the checkmarks. New followers are not magically heading their way. The problem wasn’t a biased liberal algorithm, it was that their tweets are no good.