Is it a bad thing if Twitter implodes? Is it bad for the world?
Yes. Maybe. Could be.
Twitter, and more expansively social media, has become where a lot of "public opinion" of the world, and especially the western world is formed, and decisions that affect us are made by people and governments on the basis of that opinion. I think that "the discourse" has always happened somewhere. Federalist/Anti-Federalist papers being published. Newspapers in general, but certainly the Yellow Press, later televised debates, talk shows and things like 60 Minutes (circa 1968), later still CNN through the 80's and 90s. All the various editorial pages and magazines, and now on the nebulous "Social Media". A decent argument could be made that nailing a list of complaints to a church door is very public discourse. This discourse
will happen, and where it does, people will seek to control it for their own ends.
Look at how the Western governments and populations are responding to the war in Ukraine for one example. The pushing of The Woke
tm is spearheaded on social media. Chinese interests are being pushed on TikTok with a striking lack of subtlety. There are plenty of other examples.
All of which is to say, that there is plenty of harm that can come from opaque interests controlling and shaping the direction of the public discourse, since that discourse ends up shaping social and government policy. If Twitter is to implode and disappear today, I think we can predict with a high level of confidence that some other means of communication will rise to fill the void in public discourse, and that folks in power will attempt to guide or control that means of communication for their own ends. Elon is certainly not a savior, or even necessarily a nice person, but he at least seems committed to guiding Twitter towards a neutral[ish] version of discourse control, which I think is better for my preferred goal of individual liberty, then any of the other options likely to rise and fill the void were Twitter to fail.