...namely that it forces people, like Elon, to entirely align their actions with the profit motive to survive. And those who do not? Don't. Under a profit system there are simply no resources to spare for anything that does not make a profit against its competitors, no matter how valuable.

You can see this in the progression of media centralization as documented in Chomsky and Herman's seminal work Manufacturing Consent. In Britain and America, the radical, working class press, despite its own readers ranking it higher than readers of other papers ranked their own papers, was pushed out of business by the fact that they weren't profitable. One factor that led to this was advertising: it used to be that papers had to cover the entire costs of production in their sales. But when advertising came along, suddenly papers that could attract ads could not only afford to produce much lower prices, but could make their papers much more salable. And guess which papers attracted the most ads? The ones which marketed to the affluent of society, the people who had money to spend on purchases -- and, just as importantly, did not threaten the capitalist status quo that advertisers depended on. Working-class papers were disadvantaged on both counts. News readers thus switched to those papers, and working-class papers, no matter how well-liked they were by their own readers (the Daily Herald had twice the readership of the Times, Financial Times, and Guardian combined, and was ranked more highly by its own readers than those other papers were by their own readers), fell apart and died.

Advertising and the profit motive also sanitize the content of existing news outlets: Anything that doesn't put consumers in the "buying mood" risks getting shelved. I'll just post some passages from the book here:

These are direct, concrete negative effects on journalism caused by the profit motive, and exactly the same phenomenon as Elon Musk being forced to repeat the previous Twitter admin's policies because that's what is profitable. In a world where you have to make money to survive, money becomes the sole measure of value -- and everything else dies.

Do you have a counterargument?

No one is forcing you to participate in this thread. You're welcome to present a dissenting opinion, but if you can't treat your fellow PPCers with respect while doing so, then don't bother.

~Neshomeh

Elon is a loose cannon and your concerns are reasonable.

...the Federalist isn't the most reliable of sources.

Quote from their Wikipedia page: > During the COVID-19 pandemic, The Federalist published numerous pieces that contained false information or information that was contrary to the recommendations of public health experts and authorities.[5][29] The Federalist published articles denouncing social distancing, as well as articles claiming that fears over the pandemic had been overhyped by the Democratic Party and the media. The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis said that Democrats were intentionally trying to "destroy the economy" as a "last-ditch 2020 play", and that "All they care about is power. And if they have to destroy your life and business to get power back, they will." The Federalist published articles calling on the government to quickly end social distancing directions, and to open businesses again.[29] Co-founder Domenech attacked a prominent analysis from Imperial College London which estimated the loss of life due to the pandemic; Domenech attacked the analysis for revising its figures downward, but the reason that the analysis did so was that the analysis incorporated the social distancing and shutdown strategies that had increasingly been implemented.[30] Robert Tracinski, a former contributor, wrote in The Bulwark that The Federalist had devolved over time into a "conspiracy-mongering partisan rag that has now become a menace to public health".[30]

> While ballots were being counted in the 2020 election, The Federalist made false claims of large-scale fraud.[8][9] One of The Federalist's tweets said, "Yes, Democrats Are Trying To Steal The Election In Michigan, Wisconsin, And Pennsylvania."[8] The website falsely insinuated that fraud was occurring in Michigan.[50] Other news outlets quickly showed that the purported fraud was a clerical error that was quickly corrected; The Federalist did not delete the story, which had gone viral.[51] Co-founder Sean Davis shared the misleading story, leading Twitter to tag his post as containing disputed information.[52]

Republican congressman Cliff Bentz of Oregon referenced Federalist articles as the source of his allegation during a town hall in La Grande that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg "bought" the 2020 election for Joe Biden by financing a 503c non-profit to expand poll worker training and security.[53]

I wouldn't consider them a reliable source.

This post has my full handle on it, I use Damian Brighte when discussing nice happy non-stressful stuff and Darke when discussing Serious Business.

I was also going to do this with my dreams of stardom, but those have long since faded...