If you tweet, you inevitably get mad. Sometimes you get really mad. And sometimes you get so mad that you tweet about it. Twitter, after all, is something of a public square where outrage reigns—and there are few things tweeters love getting angry about more than Twitter itself.
Remember when Twitter killed the fav(e)? Mayhem ensued. How about when Tweetdeck has had issues? Drama everywhere (except not really). But most of all, tweeters couldn't bear the thought of their beloved, free-wheeling streams going algorithmic. (#RIPTwitter)
Turns out, most of you don't actually care.
In the quarterly earnings report it released today, Twitter said just 2 percent of tweeters choose to opt-out of the new "enhanced" (i.e. algorithmic) timeline. While anyone can easily opt-out by changing their settings, it seems most people don't think it's worth the effort. In other words, the twitterverse hasn't seen its feeds reordered as it feared, and everyone's survived seeing a few out-of-order tweets at the top of their feeds.
For Twitter, the fact most people haven't opted out works out well. "We’re really proud of the refined timeline," Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in the earnings call, adding Twitter has seen more people tweet, retweet, like tweets, and reply to tweets thanks to the changes. The company will continue to refine how the timeline works, he said.
This, of course, doesn't mean everyone loves Twitter's tweaks. People may be too lazy to tweak the settings. Or maybe no one really cares. Perhaps "While You Were Away," and other features designed to show you the best stuff first aren't so bad after all. Regardless, Twitter's executives know the company can make small changes, and, righteous indignation aside, everyone will move on eventually.