And that reason is simple. Musk’s real heresy wasn’t returning something closer to free speech to Twitter. It was proving that the company could operate on 20% of its old budget and one-quarter of its staff.
That 80% cost reduction didn’t just equate to stabilizing the company, it freed it from the tyranny of the advertiser.
Musk doesn’t need advertising on Twitter the way Twitter needed advertising before him. The company wasn’t being run as a profit center measured in dollars.
Twitter was a loss leader for tyrants. The legacy media conglomerates are their policy makers and the ad executives their thought policemen.
Musk is now turning the entire cost structure of news media on its head. It was always going to happen, he just ripped the last band-aid off exposing the rot underneath.
The media companies and their advertising control model worked so well for so long because it costs billions to run a broadcast network. The on-air talent, the producers, the studio, cameras, travel, etc. are expensive folks. FOX’s makeup budget alone is more than my annual operating costs.
No wonder they just fired Laura Ingraham, too.
Have you seen the 25-54 demo ratings?
The media companies had to depend on the kindness of strangers to even stay in business.
Today most of the distribution has been decentralized, i.e. Twitter and personal ISP fees. Physical production tools are cheap. Bandwidth is cheaper. The overhead of running a small broadcast company with a private subscription model is a far lower percentage of top-line revenue than any big network.