Prediction for Twitter's demise:

1. Twitter gets harder to maintain

2. Outages increase from once a week to near daily

3. Elon Musk pronounces that Twitter's old code is a mess that can't be saved, and he promises Twitter 3.0 -- which will be better in all ways from the old Twitter

4. A year later, Twitter 3.0 is released, and it's not like "real" Twitter -- but it's a pay-to-play platform

5. People finally realize "old" Twitter is not coming back, and go elsewhere -- probably to Mastodon

Why do I believe Twitter's demise will follow the above playbook?

Because I've seen this happen before.

The most infamous example is Digg.

In that example, Digg's demise meant Reddit's ascendancy.

There's three factors at play in Twitter's demise:

1. Unmaintainable code and architecture
2. Pressure to monetize
3. A competitor that can't be copied

I bet you that when Twitter 3.0 inevitably gets released, it will come with much fanfare.

At last! Elon Musk is fixing all of Twitter's problems!

They have signed longterm deals with Disney, News Corp, and Hearst!

Omnicom is an excited partner!

...and then people will actually use Twitter 3.0.

And why will people hate Twitter 3.0? Why do I know it will be an incredibly awful experience?

As it is, Twitter has been moving to a pay-to-play model for awhile. People have tolerated it because they can still talk to their friends.

With Elon Musk, the movement to pay-to-play has hastened.

But Elon has already burned bridges with advertisers and content producers, and for him to get them back on board he will have to do something drastic 😁

When Twitter 3.0 gets released, the entire "For You" page will just be ads, chatbots, and "content".

You won't be seeing your friends.

You will be able to like and share, but your replies will be buried and unseen.

Tweeting will be like speaking into a chasm.

Kind of like how it is now—but more so.

Gradually, people will begin to notice that you can actually talk to your friends on that Mastodon service—so why not go there instead?

@atomicpoet Part of the reason I gave up Twitter a damn long time back was because of the chasm effect. Anyone I wanted to engage with had already moved on - we knew death was coming.

@atomicpoet AND -get this- it was a marketing community.

The grifters will stay there. The real professionals know it's been long dead.