Twitter, Ticketmaster, and Trump
Twitter, Ticketmaster, and Trump
It wasn’t the best week for Elon Musk’s Twitter, Ticketmaster, or Donald J. Trump.
Twitter: At the time of sitting down and writing this post Elon Musk might be meeting with the remaining Twitter engineers? Who can say for certain over there.
Earlier this week Elon sent a late night email telling the remaining employees they had a choice whether to accept a 3 month severance or stick around and go “hardcore” for Twitter 2.0.
Listen, everybody has to go their own way, but if a CEO sends you an email in the middle of the night offering you 3 months of guaranteed pay over being “hardcore,” I feel like the guaranteed pay is the way to go.
Apparently, upwards of 1,000 employees see this choice the same way that I do and decided to bolt. On Thursday night Twitter users, including yours truly, spent the night saying goodbye to Twitter. It’s hard to see how the “bird app” continues with a depleted workforce and mass confusion. A whole host of issues could be waiting to take the site down due to lack of people to care for it.
The thing is that last night’s “Goodbye Twitter” party is a perfect example of what made Twitter so much fun. You had a bunch of people cracking jokes, retweeting, and having fun together over a cultural moment.
I don’t have high hopes for Twitter going forward and honestly, I’m pretty bummed. The good far outweighed the bad. It’s hard to see how it continues with Elon Musk at the helm. I’m not one of those “never bet against Elon” guys because, well, he has given me every reason to bet against him.
Ticketmaster: Ticketmaster is a bad company that completely takes advantage of consumers. It has been this way for a very long time. I bought tickets for The Hold Steady and Mountain Goats show at The Salt Shed here in Chicago and spent $13 in fees for a $48 ticket. Tickets for the upcoming Springsteen show in Milwaukee cost me $60 for the ticket and $25 in fees per ticket. It sucks that artists continue to use them.
I would like to think that the Ticketmaster Fiasco caused by the upcoming Taylor Swift “Era Tour” will finally be the end of the stranglehold they have on concerts, but I’m skeptical. Senator Amy Klobuchar might be locked on to them and the DOJ might be investigating them, but this company has survived more times than Michael Myers.
There is no other way to describe the ticket-buying process for Taylor Swift week than a disaster. Fans were left waiting to try and buy tickets for hours. Eventually, Ticketmaster just had to cancel the general audience sale. At the moment nosebleed tickets to Soldier Field show are over $700.
I don’t understand why artists keep using this service. Taylor Swift has a well-managed personal brand and working with a subpar third party like Ticketmaster is going to hurt her.
I mean, the check from Ticketmaster will still clear so Taylor can find some comfort in that I guess.
Trump: Donald J. Trump, who has never won the popular vote, lost the 2020 Election by over 7 million votes, instigated an insurrection, was crucial in two crushing midterm elections, and is the subject of multiple investigations, has announced his 3rd attempt at running for President.
I watched his announcement and it was lackluster and low energy.
BONUS
Pelosi: On the other hand, Speaker of the House Nancy, a truly skilled politician, announced that she will not be running for leadership in the next Congress. If you aren’t a
member I recommend taking advantage of their special $8 subscription to read 's write up on her today.