htxt.africast – Is this the beginning of Twitter’s end?

It has been a few months since the Elon Musk-led Twitter was the main topic of discussion in an africast, but given some of the bad decisions made for the social media platform in recent days, we though it pertinent to talk about whether this is indeed the start of Twitter’s end. Before that, however, and as is the usual format, we’re running through some interesting and important news stories from the past few days. The first is the rising cost of electricity for Johannesburg residents. This after Nersa-approved tariff hikes for households, businesses, and power producers took effect this month. “The increase sees Johannesburg residents paying R2.10 more per kWh in block one which accounts for usage up to 350kWh. Once customers go over the 350kWh threshold, the rate increases to R2.41 per kWh at Block 2,” Brendyn Lotz reported. Next is outrage over the handling of new bank accounts, cards, and fees by NSFAS. With students already working with small margins in terms of what they can afford under the NSFAS grants, the addition of these hidden costs eat into money needed elsewhere. “These fees were never explicitly mentioned by NSFAS communications. Neither from its official website nor its Twitter account. Something that could have been important for people who live in a vulnerable financial situation, as many NSFAS students do,” wrote Luis Monzon. Our last piece of news centres around the Apple Vision Pro augmented reality headset. Revealed by the company last month, and earmarked for release in selected regions next year, it looks like the amount of devices that can be manufactured has been greatly scaled back. “Apple is said to have wanted as many as one million units produced, but suppliers in China have tempered those expectations and provided an updated guideline of less than 400 000,” highlighted Robin-Leigh Chetty. As for the meat and potatoes of this podcast, we take a look at Twitter’s rate limiting decision at the weekend, which has stoked the ire of users and advertisers alike. Added to this is the killing off of legacy Tweetdeck, which many users and organisations (ourselves included) were reliant upon. With Meta also readying to launch a Twitter rival of its own called Threads this week, we question whether Twitter’s end is nigh and if the platform will be able to see the end of 2023 if more bad decisions like these are taken. MENTIONED IN THIS AFRICAST: 350kWh of power now costs R845 in Johannesburg, Why students are furious about new NSFAS bank fees, Something’s dodgy about NSFAS bank accounts – OUTA, Apple reportedly scales back Vision Pro production, Meta Twitter rival Threads goes live early, Twitter’s reasons for rate limiting are weak, Twitter forces new, much worse Tweetdeck on users. [Image – Photo by ilgmyzin on Unsplash] The post