Expectations aren’t rigid. They move, change, and evolve.
The Twitter Example
When Elon Musk bought Twitter, he expected to run it like a car company. Or a tech company. It isn’t. It’s a communication company. Which has different expectations.
He expected to be able to do what he always does. We expected him to do what he always does. The world also expected Twitter to do what it always does.
Musk expected to make Twitter into a haven for free speech; somehow creating what Parler and Truth Social couldn’t. And yet he can neither prevent himself from banning those who mock him nor solve the problem of neutrality: less moderation allows more abuse.
Free Speech absolutists expect it all to just work, because content moderation has successfully enabled conversation. Most people don’t want to use services where trolls troll them. We don’t expect to be coddled, but we do expect not be screamed at.
Twitter’s leadership had long cultivated a culture of open communication with the boss. Musk fires people who say different things than he wants to hear. He reserves the right to platform and silence whomever he wants. And still be a free speech absolutist.
We even expect Musk’s hypocrisy to matter to him. Or to those who defend him. And yet his supporters expect us to only care about that because of partisanship.
All of these expectations: about speech, Twitter, authority, ideology, consistency, corporate governance, labor relations, social media interactions, and opportunity to participate without fear of bullying are expectations most of us just have.
Expectations evolve by necessity.
How they interact depend entirely on the environment. Changes in the environment force the development of new expectations.
Universal expectations about a boss being able to fire people who aren’t “hardcore” enough, for example, are weird enough in the abstract. They get even weirder when faced with reality.
It’s wise to be conscious of expectations. Even wiser to recognize that they always change when confronted. They adapt. Like when water runs into a rock, it flows around it.
Even our expectation about expectations needs to be treated the same way.