> I think if people knew then what they know now about how these platforms would behave starting around 2015 they would have had a much more difficult time achi

> I think if people knew then what they know now about how these platforms would behave starting around 2015 they would have had a much more difficult time achieving their dominant positions, there would have been far more skepticism. Maybe. The polarization of the country has increased significantly since the covid era. Plus most of this censorship discourse really only occurs at the edges. 99% of my meatspace social network cares about seeing puppy vidoes or whatever Taylor Swift has to say. Exactly zero of them have any expectation that their posts will ever be censored because they don't post anything oppositional. I think that, even with censorship, void a real alternative competitor, the networks would have grown all the same. The only difference is maybe TruthSocial or Rumble would have spun off a few years earlier.