You don't pay for Twitter's infrastructure, you pay for it's >210M daily active users. What it cost, in dollars and years, to replicate that? Some $200 per Twitter DAU is not extravagant, 13 years of current average revenue per user, one which could (but doesn't have to) greatly appreciate by pressing on monetization, it's at like Facebook 2014 levels.
When Facebook paid 1 and 14 billion-s for Instagram and WhatsApp, it wasn't for the handful of employees and the codebases, but the userbases with snowballing network effects. They tried replicating TikTok with Lasso and Snapchat with Poke and Slingshot, but none of that went anywhere. It's not easy to build a large userbase, and as far as I can see from social media history, all the large ones were first to get some steam in whatever niche-s they occupy. Leveraging their 3 other networks Facebook's able to bolt-on competitors to steal some inertia from the snowballs (Stories which is a larger business then Snap by now, and Reels which is seemingly going somewhere), but building a standalone social media for competing with an existing incumbent is just bloody hard. They're displaceable, but there's always been something novel when social media market shares went to or grew into a new app.
Twitter's not quite snowballing at this point, but it has entrenched itself in some important roles and niches (namely of a town square and an official outlet) that are hard to displace. It would take time, effort and significant propositions to outgrow Twitter's significance. Alternatively, one can sell a quarter (or a third once Twitter's board or shareholders refuse and he bumps the offer) of it's Tesla shares - or borrow against the whole - and buy the existing network, go from there.
A network effect is one of many forms of licenses to print money which can't just be replaced. Like a brand, any decently sized game dev team can probably clone Call of Duty or EA Sports games, won't get them the licenses to print money that Activision (soon Microsoft) and EA hold. You can make the best perfumes, it doesn't buy you Coco Chanel's money printer.
When Facebook paid 1 and 14 billion-s for Instagram and WhatsApp, it wasn't for the handful of employees and the codebases, but the userbases with snowballing network effects. They tried replicating TikTok with Lasso and Snapchat with Poke and Slingshot, but none of that went anywhere. It's not easy to build a large userbase, and as far as I can see from social media history, all the large ones were first to get some steam in whatever niche-s they occupy. Leveraging their 3 other networks Facebook's able to bolt-on competitors to steal some inertia from the snowballs (Stories which is a larger business then Snap by now, and Reels which is seemingly going somewhere), but building a standalone social media for competing with an existing incumbent is just bloody hard. They're displaceable, but there's always been something novel when social media market shares went to or grew into a new app.
Twitter's not quite snowballing at this point, but it has entrenched itself in some important roles and niches (namely of a town square and an official outlet) that are hard to displace. It would take time, effort and significant propositions to outgrow Twitter's significance. Alternatively, one can sell a quarter (or a third once Twitter's board or shareholders refuse and he bumps the offer) of it's Tesla shares - or borrow against the whole - and buy the existing network, go from there.
A network effect is one of many forms of licenses to print money which can't just be replaced. Like a brand, any decently sized game dev team can probably clone Call of Duty or EA Sports games, won't get them the licenses to print money that Activision (soon Microsoft) and EA hold. You can make the best perfumes, it doesn't buy you Coco Chanel's money printer.