bruceymonkeyalice
Zoë SchifferOkay, we're doing this! Going to post scoops here & Discord moving forward. One funny piece of news to start: a team at Twitter recently considered auctioning off old usernames. Here's how the idea was first floated on Slack: "Day 1 of the marketplace involves auctioning off all of the currently inactive handles. There are some amazing handles that are currently going totally unused, which is a waste...we take some percentage cut of the final auction price for each handle sold, like eBay." 1/
"People area already buying and selling handles without our knowledge using untrustworthy 3rd party sites." I don't know how far this plan got before it was abandoned -- if you know more, DM me! 2/2
Mudit@zoeschiffer Imagine being so broke you gotta sell people's usernames.
HandgunYoga (he/him/his)
Natanael ⚠️@HandgunYoga @kevindebruyne @zoeschiffer imagine all the off-twitter links people have to old profiles which could suddenly be taken over without warning.
And what happens to old mentions? Will they all be rewritten to remove the name?
Colossalhobo@zoeschiffer I don't hate this idea of all things.
In the end I would be more for them just going into the pool and allowing people to grab them first come first served but if the name is just being squatted on that is not exactly an ideal.
In the end I would be more for them just going into the pool and allowing people to grab them first come first served but if the name is just being squatted on that is not exactly an ideal.
lauowolf@zoeschiffer It's just part of gutting twitter for profit, the usual pattern for corporate raiders.
Eshu Marneedi@zoeschiffer lmao - so twitter was going to sell the handles themselves? hahhahahahaha
@EshuMarneedi That was the plan!
Leon Overweel@zoeschiffer @EshuMarneedi if they turn them into NFTs we’ve really gone full circle in this year’s tech news cycle
Matt ⎊ 
Peter Yang, MD - Yaz@zoeschiffer Next idea: subscription fees to hang on to desirable usernames, in the name of generating revenue for Twitter. OR, a "Something Awful" style of pay for warfare to temporarily ban and enact other actions on other accounts or your own
nicegnome@zoeschiffer welcome! 🥰
Mike Beasley@zoeschiffer floated by elon or someone else?
@MikeBeas Not by Elon! Someone else -- but apparently it inspired other employees to at least start looking into the possibility.
@zoeschiffer concerning!
Longshot@zoeschiffer Ayyyy, just followed you from twitter!
Lol bonus, I had a typo but here I can fix it!
Franky@zoeschiffer hey, can you share the discord link?
Seb
Muffin@zoeschiffer How do I get on the Discord?
Robin from Colorado 🇺🇸🇺🇦@zoeschiffer Welcome Zoe! you probably know this but because Mastodon lacks algorithms to push content at you, you have to get busy to follow 200 people to make the experience work for you if you read others content. That’s a big if. But it’s worth it to put the work in IMO. The content is miles better here
Zac@zoeschiffer Would be interested to hear how Discord works compared to other platforms after you have had a chance to try it
gizmo@zoeschiffer That's crazy. And it's nice to be able to say that without looking over your shoulder like at the other place! :-)
Andrew Briscoe@zoeschiffer There’s an inactive username I would take if they purge it but pay? No.
@Welcome.
Remember…the experience on here will feel quite flat (no algorithms) unless you follow and interact quite broadly.
Good luck.
City Techie 
@zoeschiffer Next, they'll make users renew their handles annually as if they were domain names.
AdamL@zoeschiffer it’s like an estate sale…while the bird site is technically still alive.