There were ads but content wasn’t manipulated algorithmically for engagement and “eyeballs” as mr Grove put it or outrage as we see today. Moreover the monetiz

There were ads but content wasn’t manipulated algorithmically for engagement and “eyeballs” as mr Grove put it or outrage as we see today. Moreover the monetization was by the website so the content creator wasn’t optimizing for engagement themselves. With most services having some kind of API “journalists” set triggers or scour for particular things so they can write about something scandalous two people said on some service somewhere so they can present it as zeitgeist.