Tech isn't twitter's primary line of business, either. The company's value derives from the users and the content they generate. Their tech isn't unique or impressive, and nobody's there for the tech, they're there for the content.
Meanwhile, some Deere buyers are there for the tech.
> The company's value derives from the users and the content they generate.
So you're conceding that Twitter isn't the entity generating the content.
> Meanwhile, some Deere buyers are there for the tech.
By your analogy, John Deere is a food company, because people aren't there for the tractors, they're there for the harvested crops. But that doesn't work because John Deere and Conagra are not the same kind of operation.
> By your analogy, John Deere is a food company, because people aren't there for the tractors, they're there for the harvested crops. But that doesn't work because John Deere and Conagra are not the same kind of operation.
Deere's customers are there for the tech. They're handing over money for it.
Twitter's customers are there for the audience. The audience is there for... the rest of the audience. Their tech is entirely incidental to their value. Calling twitter a tech company is like calling Deere a factory company—one uses tech and one uses factories, but that's not what they are.
[EDIT] To be clear, I'm not saying we should call John Deere a tech company—I don't think it's the best label, even as a very broad one, for what they do—but I do think Twitter is so not one that it'd make more sense to call Deere a tech company than Twitter.
> Twitter's customers are there for the audience. The audience is there for... the rest of the audience. Their tech is entirely incidental to their value. Calling twitter a tech company is like calling Deere a factory company—one uses tech and one uses factories, but that's not what they are.
John Deere designs their own tractors. Their customers want tractors. They could outsource the manufacturing and still sell to the same customers.
Foxconn is a factory company. The thing people want from them is manufacturing. Their customers are the likes of Dell and Apple. If they had no factories they would have no business.
Twitter operates servers and writes code. That's who they employ and how their business operates. Their users want to talk to each other, in the same way as John Deere's customers want harvested crops. But the way Twitter provides that service is through computers and software.
Notably, the way they provide that service is not through employing reporters to write stories.
Do you think technology is a notable differentiator for Twitter?
Are new users (or actual customers—advertisers, blue-checks these days, which, LOL) signing up because they want access to the technology?
If another company cloned 100% of Twitter's proprietary technology, perfectly, how would investors react to that company, if that's all they've got?
If that company offered that tech for sale, outright, straight-up IP transfer, a single bidder owns the whole thing, what percentage of Twitter's value would that tech command on the market?
> They could outsource the manufacturing and still sell to the same customers.
Twitter could completely outsource their software development and still sell advertising to its customers.
> Foxconn is a factory company.
Wtf does this even mean? Foxconn is a semiconductor manufacturer...
> Their customers are the likes of Dell and Apple.
Oh great, so Apple isn't a tech company anymore? Don't they write code that powers the back-end of virtually every iPhone in existence (backup, iCloud, iMessage, App Store, etc. etc.).
> Twitter operates servers and writes code. That's who they employ and how their business operates.
So how do you explain all of the sales people? Or the content regulation? Or the support? fun fact - when it was publicly traded Twitter spent nearly equally on R&D as it did S&M.
> Notably, the way they provide that service is not through employing reporters to write stories.
Because this is OUTSOURCED. It's user generated content.
Meanwhile, some Deere buyers are there for the tech.