Incredibly, Twitter has now made it impossible for public safety bulletins to be posted automatically by weather services, tsunami warnings, the MTA etc. This is consistent with Musk’s particular lack of interest in public service. But it also highlights the general problem of building networks on private property - precisely why we need Mastodon and other open source apps to take their proper place at the center of our online communities
@dada_drummer I could argue that all of Musk's ventures exhibit hostility to the idea and provision of public goods, rather than mere lack of interest

@pinsk @dada_drummer

public safety bulletins should be provided by an independent resource; if a country doesn't have public service broadcasters then setting up a Fediverse instance *and* an independent website/app is a good idea, as well as making use of regional/national alert systems that are already available with many modern mobile devices (the UK is testing the national alert system next week)

Elon Musk says he's anti-subsidy, but has gotten billions of dollars

Musk's companies benefited from subsidies as recently as April, when SpaceX won a $2.89 billion contract from NASA. Tesla got subsidies for years.

Business Insider
@masterdon @pinsk @dada_drummer Just a bullshitter, bullshiting to suit his interests as he sees it.

@masterdon @pinsk @dada_drummer

We need to segment the 'contracts' from the actual subsidies. I'm sure he still takes millions if not billions in subsidies, but contracts for services are not the same thing.

Of course that is also caveated with, who else is launching things into space so perhaps it somewhat qualifies. But I'd think the best simplest message is actually full on subsidies so we aren't playing word definitions later.

Edit: a similar thing, Congress ppl do not have gov't provided healthcare...they have employer provided healthcare via the exchanges. It's just that the employer happens to be the gov't.

@pixelpusher220 @masterdon @dada_drummer subsidies to a for profit venture performing some function which was formerly or more naturally should be a public service or good. Hyperloop or boring or BEV to forestall the critical development of public transit infrastructure. Solar City to compete with public utilities, SpaceX to displace NASA, Starlink to undercut terrestrial tariff subsidized telecoms. All an attack on or taking profit from public goods.

@pinsk @masterdon @dada_drummer

Definitely some gray areas. Orbital launch is a good example of something of that.

Should it be a public good? I think that's pretty debatable. It certainly has been due to economics, but SpaceX and others are bringing down launch costs.