No, the article was not about him saying he lost his audience. That's the sort of reading that comes from simplistically thinking that everyone is only ever tak

No, the article was not about him saying he lost his audience. That's the sort of reading that comes from simplistically thinking that everyone is only ever taking any position because of self-interest. Yes, he has a conflict of interest, which was clearly revealed. But the point of the article was about the shift in power, and the concentration of power in the way that the social media networks work. The point has NOTHING to do with his own access to an audience and is all about his concern about imagining the way today's versions of himself (young Iranians writing about issues today) will be limited and controlled to favor commercial interests in ways that were not the case before. Re: pessimism vs futurism etc., you're the one that made the "people are getting smarter" claim, which is quite bold and demands evidence. I'll grant that it's possible that more percentage of people are getting adequate nutrition, health care, and education such that they are potentially more intelligent, but there's no basis for just asserting that an educated, well-nourished person today is generally any smarter than someone of that status from generations ago. So the curve is more about the percentage of people with decent health and education, and that's not something that leads to a conclusion of ever-increasing future intelligence.