Gerald Ratner was the managing director of a big jewellery business. In the eighties "Ratners" jewellery shops could be found in every British city and large town. They were very profitable and took the mystique and stuffiness out of traditional jewellery retailing. The market they aimed for was distinctly working class - making jewellery affordable for the masses.
Everything was trucking along very nicely until Gerald Ratner made a much reported speech to The Institute of Directors on April 23rd 1991. He said this:-
"We also do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray that your butler can serve you drinks on, all for £4.95. People say, "How can you sell this for such a low price?", I say, "because it's total crap."
It was what has become known as his "Ratner moment". Feeling grossly insulted, hordes of previously loyal customers voted with their feet and stayed away from "Ratners" shops causing the value of the business to drop by £500,000 or half a billion almost over night. Shops had to close and nowadays there are no Ratners shops left.
I think of Gerald Ratner in connection with Elon Musk - purportedly the richest man in the world. He bought up Twitter for $44 billion (US) and for spurious reasons related to his weird perception of democracy. Like King Midas, I guess he thought that everything he touched would turn to gold.
But now it is all turning to excrement for Musk. Advertisers are falling away and many thousands of Twitter users are voting with their feet and staying away just as Gerald Ratner's customers did in 1991. Maybe Twitter was already becoming old-fashioned and uncool. It will be interesting to see if Musk can ever revive Twitter but giving Donald Trump his old platform back is hardly going to endear Twitter to intelligent liberals around the world. It is also extremely misguided and dangerous to champion the notion that democracy is about allowing people to say what the hell they want without moderation or verification.
Musk may be a genius in some respects but when all is said and done he's not a very likeable man. I know that it is not quite the same and I may be very wrong but I think of Musk buying Twitter as his Ratner moment even though it may have little impact on his Tesla business. We shall see.
I don't like Elon Musk. He's an arrogant man who thinks his shit doesn't stink. News flash, it does.
ReplyDeleteI think it will have a musky aroma.
DeleteUgh
DeleteIt somes down to how many believe comething, irrespecter of there it is right or wring. The world I grew up in had principles.
ReplyDeleteAnd one of those principles was the headmaster at Goole Grammar School.
DeleteOh hear! To me explained soon.
DeleteI am no great fan of Trump or Musk, however the banning of Trump (and many others) by Twitter falls foul of the quote attributed to Voltaire (but actually from Evelyn BeatriceHall) - ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. If Musk pulls the teeth of the so-called moderators on Twitter then that will be no bad thing - "cancel culture" has claimed far too many victims for daring to say anything that the twitterati consider to be beyond the pale.
ReplyDeleteWould you have been happy with Adolf Hitler dishing out his poison via Twitter? Or David Icke? Or Peter Sutcliffe? Or NIgel Farage? I would not defend to the death their right to even ask for a cup of tea.
DeleteThis is a very interesting take on the Elon/Twitter situation. i did not know about Ratner's but I will now go down the rabbit hole and read everything I can and hope with all my heart that Elon is Ratner 2.0. Better yet, I hope that the U.S. Republican party is Ratner 2.5.
ReplyDeleteLike Ratner, Musk's head got too damned big. His association with Twitter will probably kill it.
DeleteI just disagree with the fact that everyone should be free to say whatever they want to say, and that it is up to everyone to sort it out for themselves. There are a lot of people out there that should simply stop talking, and reflecting on one of his own recent tweets (now deleted), I think Elon Musk is one of them.
ReplyDeleteElon Musk seems to have a good brain for technological matters and blue sky thinking but on morality, decency and common sense he seems very undernourished.
DeleteThey're both loons. they can make big mistakes.
ReplyDeleteI thought that a loon was a kind of bird. You should know that Mr Birder!
DeleteI can't stand Elon Musk and this pre-dates Twitter. There is no such thing as a unrestricted right to free speech. Inciting violence and threatening are not protected by our 1st amendment. I quote: You’re not protected by freedom of speech, if you are lying about someone’s mental health, criminal background, or medical status.
ReplyDeleteThis is called slander if you say it and libel if you write it. And while it won’t land you in jail, you can be sued in civil court for defamation of character. Freedom of speech does not protect you against falsely accusing someone of a crime or spreading lies about someone in order to hurt them socially or professionally. On the topic of hurting people, you’re also not allowed to actually say you are going to hurt someone. Threatening statements are criminally illegal, even if you’re joking.
Me again: the 1st amendment is about the government coming after you anyway; private entities can enact their own consequences. I hope Twitter totally tanks.
You are entirely right that there are existing laws in most developed countries that adequately address the issues that you raise. However, with Twitter and other social media there is another layer of censorship that is entirely outside and legal control or redress, and this appears to be enforced by morons in back offices in California - these are the new equivalent of the Catholic book burners or the Nazi book burners. As an example from the current UK, K K Rowling has been under sustained attack in most social media for stating an entirely true biological reality - should this really put her beyond the pale of polite society in the way that these backroom moderators seem to want?
DeleteBouncers stand at night club doors and keep unwanted visitors out - people who are too drunk, high on drugs, abusive, inappropriately attired or people who have misbehaved before. "You are not coming in so sling your hook!" Twitter is a privately owned money-making venture - just like a night club. If you don't like the rules then go somewhere else. Is K.K. Rowling related to Joanne Rowling - the writer of those tedious "Harry Potter" books? I would certainly bar Harry Potter from Twitter - boring little fart!
DeleteYou are indeed correct about it being a privately owned company with rules of its own. Geeze, if I had said half the things in the classroom that I wanted to, I would definitely have been banned!
DeleteMISS MARGARET Okay kids. Today you'll be learning how to extort money from vulnerable senior citizens.Pay attention!
DeleteFat fingers - yes, I meant JK Rowling. The nightclub bouncer is only the custodian of an enterprise affecting a tiny number of people, the moderators at Twitter are dealing with a platform of millions/billions of people, we have in no way got to grips with how to adequately police such organisations - are they a broadcaster like the BBC, a common carrier like Royal Mail, either of which have profoundly different spheres of influence, my letter to you is private and I can say much more than my broadcast would be permitted to say.
DeleteThat's an interesting story about Ratner. There are already good alternatives to Twitter and it will only need one to take off for Twitter to become like Myspace, a once popular but now digital relic. Musk isn't very likeable and fancy saying one of the Thai cave rescuers was a paedophile without any evidence.
ReplyDeleteThere was no way that Musk's submarine could function in a complicated cave system. It was as if he had no idea what limestone caves are like. And calling Vernon Unsworth a paedophile was disgusting even though Musk later used his wealth to successfully challenge the defamation case he faced in an LA court room.
DeleteHe's got that same "smug" set to his face that Trump had for so long, until it all came crashing down. It might take longer than he thinks, but Twitter will crash now that it is owned and run by a twit.
ReplyDeleteLinking the megalomaniac with Twitter was an unwise move regarding future progress of the company. Musk doesn't seem to understand that he isn't liked by people in general.
DeleteInteresting parallel. Ratner lived in a time when you couldn't become the richest man in the world. But such thinking as his of course made such evil men as Musk come into existence. World dominance is impossible and hopefully democracy will bring him down.
ReplyDeleteHe probably doesn't know how ordinary people view him with a degree of revulsion.
DeleteIt‘s simple, actually: One person‘s freedom ends where the next person‘s freedom begins. That applies to even the smallest things, such as listening to music. I am free to listen to whatever music I like, but if I turn up the volume so much that my neighbours are forced to listen to it, too, that encroaches their freedom to listen to what they like (or no music at all).
ReplyDeleteWhy do we humans have problems even with the simplest things?
We have problems with the simplest things because we are simple.
DeleteIt's probably a tax dodge. If you're not making a profit you pay little taxes.
ReplyDeleteI had not thought of that but of course you are probably right.
DeleteMusk and Trump both share the same self-satisfied smirk.
ReplyDeleteI've never had anything to do with any of the social media sites and find the idea of "befriending" utterly sad.
How many followers have you got Carol? I have got more than Moses.
DeleteNone!
DeleteHow can you even live without followers?
DeleteI never understood the attraction of twitter in the first place, good riddance,
ReplyDeleteI never liked the idea of reducing thoughts, reports and ideas down to 280 characters. A kind of trivialisation of everything.
DeleteI agree; he is not a likable person. He seems smug and contrarian.
ReplyDeleteThey say that genius is next to madness. Musk proves this very starkly.
DeleteI worry that people are so used to getting the hit of dopamine when they use Twitter that they aren't going to want to give it up. I know that many "celebrities" communicate with their fans via Twitter. Is there a good option for that? I don't know. But Musk's purchase of it truly disturbs me.
ReplyDeleteThere's always something different waiting - just off the stage. I heard about "Mastodon" today. Suddenly it's growing. I also heard today that Musk has advised Twitter users to vote Republican! Hopefully, that intervention will boost the Democrat vote.
Delete