Twitter is refusing to pay Google for cloud services. Here’s why it matters, and what the fallout could be for users
Twitter is refusing to pay Google for cloud services. Here’s why it matters, and what the fallout could be for users
Cloud computing is a way for businesses to access extra computational resources over the internet. Without it, the internet as we know it would malfunction.
"Google Cloud hosts many of Twitter’s trust and safety services. If the disagreement isn’t resolved by the end of the month, and if Twitter severs ties with Google Cloud, this could seriously threaten its ability to fight spam, remove child sexual abuse material and generally protect accounts."
So, it only breaks things that are vitally important for Twitter, as well as legally mandated, but not anything Musk actually cares about...
Yea exactly, clearly intentional in a manner that his rabid fanboys will gloss right over and direct their rage at Google or whoever else he ends up blaming.
When I first heard all of this I thought it was just a ridiculous rumour. Out of all the things Elon has done this probably surprises me the most. Google is probably one of a handful of entities that he can't push around.
I’m gonna be honest, as someone who couldn’t give less of a crap what happens to Twitter, it’s just hilarious at this point. This is the kind of dumpster fire that warms your hands when it’s really cold out, so you just keep coming back to look at it.
I found it had value for finding immediate info on some active event, be it an outage of some major service, a breaking news, natural disasters - for me, wildfire info. The rest of twitter I couldn't care less about.
Pure poetry
Crazy how being a total asshole to everyone on the planet doesn’t work out in your favor
"It worked so far. I wonder what I'm doing wrong now. I'm probably slipping. I just need to try (to be an asshole) harder."
“Doesn’t work out in your favor”
You know you’re talking about a guy that became a billionaire by being a jerk to lots of people and even scamming governments, right?
And he could do all that by using money from his father, which became super rich by making lots of Africans work like slaves in mines.
Being a jerk is a lifestyle that pays a lot, unfortunately.
It works out in their favour at the cost of literally everyone else
That could explain the limits today and changing APIs, blocking Nitter and users not logged in...
The login-block appears to be exasperating the issue, by creating a pull loop, they are DDOS-ing themselves. ~source
They turned off non logged in people, to save resources and it caused the opposite effect, too bad they fired all those developers.
They fucked around and found out. This is all so fucking hilarious.
The Twitter meltdown looks like it’s gathering pace.
Astonishing how the ultra rich can just get away without paying their bills. Isn’t he also behind on rent for loads of Twitter offices? Not to mention not honouring severance pay agreements.
Wonder if debtors prison is still a thing anywhere in the world …
It’s amusing that he is behind on office rentals given that he’s demanded his staff stop previous Work From Home and return to the office.
It is very typical for businesses of all sizes to delay payments, not just rich. That's one of the reasons why industrial applications, tools and goods are so expensive - you always need a healthy money buffer when you're doing B2B.
When you pay way too much for a barely-profitable business you have to cut costs somewhere. Firing 80% of the staff and refusing to pay the rent was just the beginning.
Twitter has already been evicted by one landlord so far.
That was a nice office location, too. The whole city is like a little tech hub
Google has taken over blocks of Boulder and put up tons of office space there. One has a massive rock climbing wall
Having never used Twitter because even at its inception I thought it was a dumb idea, watching it collapse is quality entertainment.
I used it a bit. It was pretty great for things like following a podcaster you liked.
Musk has made it super toxic. Most of the people that I’d follow have left or cut their posting down to zero.
I'm glad since when I found my Twitter rss feeds interrupted it actually pushed me to setup mastodon rss feeds for the first time. I hope Elon keeps this rates limits in place and announces like super blue premium for unlimited access.
Lol. Is this the reason for the rate limit today? Guess the didn't manage to work it out by the end of the month.
Normally a company the size of Twitter might get a grace period from Google to pay their bill. Since its been pretty clear that Musk doesn't even pay rent on office building anymore, I wonder if Google will cease all access to the Twitter servers/services running in GCP immediately and demand payment before allowing access again.
I'm gonna point out that the author of that article closes out with this ..
In a worst-case scenario, Twitter may collapse or destabilise if certain elements within it go offline. Aside from Twitter trolls, this outcome would be in nobody’s best interest. So it’s more likely Twitter and Google Cloud will find a mutually agreeable way forward.
And offers exactly zero information to back that warning up. Just a vague hint at bias, "Google better let Twitter not pay or no one will benefit"... Doesn't sound very objective to me.
Because I think it would be in quite a few people's best interests for Twitter to shut down, maybe when it's owner, but definitely a lot of users and the rest of us fed up with journalism being defined by Twitter.
I fail to see how it’s in Google’s interest to put up with the Muskrat’s shenanigans. Twitter could collapse overnight and it would be no skin off Google’s teeth.
Their new CEO started paying their google bills: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/twitter-ceo-starts-fighting-musks-battles-paying-musks-overdue-bills/
This is abviously Twiiter trying to renegoiate their contract with Google.. I hope Google plays hard ball and doesn't give in to Twitter.
Edit: actually maybe not, this may be what happened and that despite earlier reports the new CEO was resolving it. Proper payment may not have actually happened…
Original post:
This is old news and it’s already been resolved. It was a negotiating tactic. Not uncommon and the news cycle just ate it up even though it’s mostly a non-issue.
Though I still think Elon is running Twitter into the ground..