If you match the performance of the S&P 500 against that of Twitter Inc. (NASDAQ:TWTR) during 2017, Twitter shows as a flighty bird going above, then diving below, a steadily rising line.

As of Oct. 12 Twitter was up 8.76% so far in 2017. But the S&P 500 is up 14.38%. The little bird is flying, just not very high.

There is a good reason for this. Twitter doesn’t make much money. It doesn’t make any money.

For the September quarter, due to be reported Oct. 26, analysts are expecting a net loss of 3 cents per share, on revenue of about $590 million.  Twitter has averaged 15 cents per share of losses over the last four quarters, but revenue is expected to be short of the nearly $616 million brought in during the same quarter last year.

Twitter is a bad investment.

As Good as it Gets

This is as good as it is going to get for Twitter, which for better or worse has become a virtual town square for the nation’s elites. A town square filled with mud that celebrities collect in their hands and throw at each other. The next president is not going to go on mad Twitter rambles. It doesn’t seem to help. What you have now looks like peak Twitter.

Our Will Healy wrote recently that Twitter could stage a comeback  but that it will have to change to do so. He called the 140 character a limit an advantage, and Twitter promptly doubled it.

Meanwhile, the cops are already coming after Twitter. Don’t tell police in the United Kingdom that a “bully tax” violates the First Amendment. It doesn’t exist there.

Twitter seems to have been Made in America, primarily for Americans. Even Americans seem to have had enough of it. Large majorities are disgusted by the Tweeter-in-chief’s Tweets. And if the Head Twit is using a service as an official platform, can he really block you?

Too Late to Do Much

The plain fact is that Twitter represents technology whose implications were not well thought out. The company itself doesn’t seem to know where the taste boundary should lie. Is it OK for a sexual assault victim to display her anguish? How about a politician showing faked videos to make a political point? Too late to say we won’t let foreigners influence our elections, Twitter has already let that horse out of the barn.

There is also a truism among both writers and corporations. At some point, you are what you are. It’s why authors trying new genres will often use a pseudonym. Companies change their names when they undertake radical strategy shifts.

Twitter itself seems to have run out of ideas. Showcasing tweets about games you can watch on TV? Twitter can be an adjunct to journalism, a way to publicize stories, but it’s useless as a discussion medium so long as trolls with fake names can jump in and hijack that discussion.

The Bottom Line is Bad

I have said this before. Twitter is a one-way medium for celebrities and those courting controversy. It’s not a two-way medium for rational discussion, which is what it masquerades as. It’s a waste of most users’ time and investors’ money.

For this reason, most analysts following Twitter have given up on the stock. Only two out of 33 following the stock want you to buy it, possibly because they see a buy-out in its future, maybe from Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL). Over one-third tell clients to underweight it or just sell it, as I have been suggesting for months.

Dana Blankenhorn is a financial and technology journalist. He is the author of the historical mystery romance The Reluctant Detective Travels in Time,  available now at the Amazon Kindle store. Write him at danablankenhorn@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @danablankenhorn. As of this writing he owned no shares in companies mentioned in this article.