Social
media
is
not
a
new
technology.
Sure,
it
changes
here
and
there
—
this
time
the
popular
one
is
teens
doing
dumb
little
dances
so
that
China
can
vacuum
up
their
data
—
but
we
should
be
well
past
the
age
when
hype
alone
dazzles
would-be
investors
in
these
supposed
tech
companies.
The
fact
is
that
high
user
counts
alone
cannot
make
an
online
media
company
profitable.
We
have
seen
that
repeatedly
in
Reddit:
the
platform
has
never
once
been
profitable
in
nearly
two
decades
of
existence,
despite
having
more
than
70
million
daily
users.
Its
lack
of
profitability
notwithstanding,
Reddit’s
recent
initial
public
offering
was
a
success.
Its
share
price
shot
up
48%
on
the
first
day
of
trading,
even
as
the
stock
gave
up
some
of
those
gains
on
the
second
day.
Reddit
shares
subsequently
rallied
again
early
in
its
first
full
week
as
a
public
company.
We
do
have
a
longstanding
model
as
to
what
makes
a
publicly
traded
social
media
company
consistently,
massively
profitable.
Facebook
(now
a
subsidiary
of
“Meta”
thanks
to
its
founder’s
rich
inner
fantasy
life)
turned
profitable
in
2009
and
went
public
a
few
years
later.
In
the
course
of
gobbling
up
several
competitors,
Facebook
has
always
remained
more
or
less
the
same
thing:
a
machine
that
attracts
eyeballs
to
screens
so
it
can
stick
mainstream
ads
in
front
of
them.
By
the
latest
figures,
97.2%
of
Facebook’s
revenue
comes
from
advertising.
Reddit
might
still
have
a
chance
to
make
money
under
this
model
(maybe
the
company
could
start
by
slashing
the
compensation
package
of
its
CEO,
who,
at
$193
million
for
2023,
reportedly
made
more
than
the
heads
of
Pinterest,
Snap,
and
Meta
combined).
Following
the
IPO,
many
Reddit
users
do
fear
the
kind
of
“watering
down”
of
content
required
to
attract
and
retain
well-heeled
mainstream
advertisers.
Yet,
Reddit
is
already
pretty
good
at
keeping
matters
to
mostly
healthy
discussions
among
dedicated
subcommunities
thanks
to
its
army
of
volunteer
moderators.
In
Reddit,
or
really
even
in
the
perennially
ubiquitous
Facebook,
we
might
already
have
as
close
as
it
gets
to
an
online
free
speech
mecca,
the
digital
town
square
purported
to
be
sought
by
so
many
right-wing
trolls.
While
you
may
have
a
right
to
say
odious
things,
in
an
actual
town
square
or
otherwise,
you
have
never
had
a
right
to
make
money
off
of
doing
so.
Nor
do
you
have
a
right
to
incite
violence
with
your
speech
or
tell
outright
lies
about
someone.
If
you
do
these
things,
you
may
face
criminal
consequences
or
civil
liability.
Plus,
social
media
companies
are
not
restrained
by
the
First
Amendment
to
begin
with
(that’s
the
government).
We
are
already
in
the
midst
of
a
real-world
experiment
on
the
concept
of
a
social
media
platform
where
supposedly
any
speech
goes.
That
is
what
Elon
Musk
promised
when
he
purchased
Twitter
and
renamed
it
X.
Not
only
have
advertisers
fled,
the
promise
turned
out
to
be
hollow,
as
X
in
practice
is
less
a
free
speech
platform
than
it
is
a
platform
where
one
can
say
anything
as
long
as
it
does
not
displease
Musk
personally.
People
still
self-moderate
somewhat
on
X
—
Musk
himself
removes
posts
fairly
frequently
after
receiving
backlash
—
yet
the
concept
of
an
unrestrained
shout-fest
has
proven
anything
but
lucrative.
The
company
is
scrambling
to
find
other
revenue
streams
as
advertising
income
dries
up,
and
X
might
even
face
bankruptcy
after
being
purchased
for
$44
billion
less
than
two
years
ago.
A
similar
fate
awaits
Truth
Social.
Like
Musk’s
X,
Donald
Trump’s
personal
social
media
playground
stakes
its
own
claim
on
the
digital
free
speech
territory.
On
March
22,
Trump
Media
&
Technology
Group,
the
owner
of
Truth
Social,
merged
with
Digital
World
Acquisition
Corporation,
a
special
purpose
acquisition
company
formed
as
a
way
to
take
Truth
Social’s
parent
public
without
an
IPO.
Based
on
a
preset
$44
per
share
price
for
Digital
World,
Trump
Media
became
a
public
company
valued
at
more
than
$5
billion.
In
a
rational
marketplace,
this
$5
billion
valuation
would
be
laughable.
The
first
nine
months
of
last
year
saw
Trump
Media
incur
a
net
loss
of
$49
million,
while
it
took
in
a
paltry
$3.3
million
in
advertising
revenue.
There
is
also
an
inherent
problem
in
that
the
bathroom
musings
of
a
77-year-old
facing
four
criminal
indictments
(containing
nearly
100
felony
counts)
are
Truth
Social’s
main
draw.
Also,
there
is
Truth
Social’s
anemic
user
count:
494,000
monthly
active
U.S.
users.
One
can
(while
holding
one’s
nose)
imagine
a
world
in
which
Trump
wins
the
2024
election
and
finds
a
way
to
funnel
taxpayer
money
to
Truth
Social
(to
himself,
in
other
words,
as
the
majority
shareholder)
like
he
did
with
many
of
his
other
businesses
during
his
first
term.
Other
than
that
scenario,
it
is
difficult
to
conceive
of
a
way
in
which
Truth
Social,
and
by
extension
Trump
Media
&
Technology
Group,
does
anything
over
time
other
than
lose
a
tremendous
amount
of
money
for
its
investors.
Of
course,
this
did
not
stop
Trump
Media,
trading
under
the
ticker
symbol
DJT
on
the
Nasdaq,
from
surging
in
value
during
its
first
day
of
public
trading
on
March
26,
because
Trump’s
rabid
supporters
never
fail
to
recklessly
throw
their
money
at
him.
When
it
comes
to
Trump
Media,
the
smart
money
will
attempt
to
seize
early
gains
on
the
backs
of
die-hard
Trump
supporters.
If
you
want
to
talk
about
a
bloodbath,
at
least
financially
speaking,
give
it
a
little
time:
we’re
about
to
see
one.
Jonathan
Wolf
is
a
civil
litigator
and
author
of Your
Debt-Free
JD
(affiliate
link).
He
has
taught
legal
writing,
written
for
a
wide
variety
of
publications,
and
made
it
both
his
business
and
his
pleasure
to
be
financially
and
scientifically
literate.
Any
views
he
expresses
are
probably
pure
gold,
but
are
nonetheless
solely
his
own
and
should
not
be
attributed
to
any
organization
with
which
he
is
affiliated.
He
wouldn’t
want
to
share
the
credit
anyway.
He
can
be
reached
at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.