It isn't quite as decisive as a submarine imploding, and ceasing to exist, but it has turned into a brightly burning tirefire.
Twitter wasn’t healthy before Musk bought it. It wasn’t a thriving business, it was a very old, very large startup still struggling to find market fit and loosing a lot of money.
Also, it wasn’t a thriving product. It was stagnant.
Since Twitter was purchased, the amount of features they have shipped has been impressive. They’ve shipped a lot of features and extended the platform a lot. To your point they have also done this with far less engineers than before.
Regarding any downtime, everyone has downtime. Google, Amazon, Meta… the best of the best still have it regardless of money or manpower.
Considering what that team has done with less resources, I think the achievement still pretty good. What do you think?
Twitter was profitable in 2018 and 2019.
https://www.netcials.com/financial-net-profit-year-quarter-u...
I'm not going to spend a lot of time researching this.
This 2019 article says they cut costs/Vine and jumped to video ads which boosted revenue 24% which might explain why they were profitable in 2019.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/07/tech/twitter-earnings-q4/inde...
In 2018 there is mention of a "one-time release of deferred tax asset valuation allowance,” which accounted for $683 million [of income]".
https://www.vox.com/2018/10/25/18018046/twitter-q3-2018-earn...
OP's point stands in my opinion. Twitter was/is a flagging centralized service that may not survive if it doesn't pivot.