Bird App blocking substack after they launch a direct competitor may be against the ethos of a free internet (which I’m all for) but it’s also the move of a rationale actor and would be expected in any other industry

If we as a society deem these practices unfair and want to go trust busting, there’s a well established process to do so

Complaining about a rational move to protect one’s interests is naive

Quite frankly most power moves in business are masked by euphemism (cf AI Safety), making direct assaults refreshing tbh

Costco is notorious for giving hot brands an ultimatum on pricing with the threat, often carried through, of launching a Kirkland copycat if they don’t comply

This is business not The United Way

co-founder stelo.com. theoretical cs phd dropout. into math, music, ml, macro, markets, surfing, writing amandhesi.net

Great point. And getting rid of length restrictions puts them in direct comp with SS

💯. For comparison Instagram implicitly blocks *all* links other than a single link in your bio

Crazy ideas at universalconstructor.substack.com | Co-founder, partner, investor @ node.vc

It might! This still lies within the frame of a rational move if they see that

Since users won’t/can’t leave it makes sense in order for them to get more traffic.

Based take. 

Co-opetition is nice when your business is growing in the negative interest rates bull run. But when you're fighting for your life as Twitter does, then it's time to cut the bullshit.

That's btw why I like web3 - the projects can be set up in a way that doesn't let them do these kind of moves.

IIRC, facebook initially (i.e. forever ago) was giving a really poor UX for YouTube links but they got smart about allowing them to be viewed + played properly.

Musk going against the ethos ? Surprised. (no)

This is an insanely petty move from Elon. I hope it’s reversed, but if not, it’s incredibly motivating for me to diversify from Twitter as much as possible. 

It also opens up a line of attack for Zuck who is currently working on a twitter clone with instagram auth

They did the same for mastodon at some point and rolled it back again.

Elon has said he wants it to be the town square. But agree this is definitely more of a walled city move.