They existed within the same space and time, but Paypal was designed as a payment processor, and x.com was more of an early online-only bank. The FTC and FDIC thwarted them in several things they wanted to do, so it never really caught on. Their online transfers via email were supposed to be pretty much what Zelle is now, but X.com’s flavor never really worked very well, quite possibly because of government interference, of which there was a lot.
The convergence between Paypal and X.com was one reason everybody involved was so gung-ho to merge them. Now we have a bunch of online banks and nobody thinks much of it. Those were the days when Elmo was still a visionary, however flawed.
Hwang is still on Twitter with the new handle of @x12345678998765. “Alls well that ends well,” he tweeted last night. He told Ars that @x12345678998765 is the handle Twitter moved him to temporarily before he picks a new name.
Holy f’n ridiculous choice of a replacement. It’s like they wanted to punish him for having the handle… there’s no way that’s just the next-numbered one available.
X also warned advertisers that beginning Aug. 7, brands’ accounts will lose their verification—a gold check mark that indicates their account truly represents their brand—if they haven’t spent at least $1,000 on ads in the previous 30 days or $6,000 on ads in the previous 180 days, according to the email.
Twitter did not immediately respond to NPR’s request for comment. But to a tweet alleging that San Francisco authorities were trying to force Musk to remove the “X” sign, the Twitter owner replied on Saturday with a laughing-crying emoji.
The emoji started to decline in popularity around the early 2020s, because Generation Z began to associate it with older generations, thus perceiving it as “uncool”. It has been predominately replaced by the sobbing emoji () and skull emoji () to express similar emotions. However, CNN did note that “sometimes teens and twenty-somethings use emoji – like the laughing crying one – ironically, such as by sending six or seven of them in a row to friends, to exaggerate it. But, overall, that emoji is a no-go.”[29] Whilst the emoji has maintained its popularity with millennials, Generation Z utilises the emoji as a form of irony. Following in the decrease in usage over Twitter, the Face with Tears of Joy emoji was briefly dethroned as the most popular Twitter emoji.[30] Researchers speculate that this decrease in popularity is due to its over-saturation and overuse within online communities.[31] In late 2021 and early 2022, however, it returned to the top of Twitter’s most popular emoji.[32][33]
According to the Progress Action Fund, which aims to defeat Republicans in red states, the platform “has censored” its account as well as the ad, called “Keep Republicans Out Of Your Bedroom.” In addition, the platform has “placed a ‘Search Ban’ and a ‘Search Suggestion Ban’ on the account.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, the account did not show up on the social media platform, yet the ad could still be seen on X through retweets from other accounts.
The Progress Action Fund said it contacted the platform’s legal department and “appealed the decision, which was denied.”
When asked what the point of the bout was by one X user, Musk responded: “It’s a civilized form of war. Men love war.”
…
Zuckerberg also shot back at the suggestion that the fight would be streamed on X, posting: “Shouldn’t we use a more reliable platform that can actually raise money for charity?”
) and 
) to express similar emotions. However, 
