Comment by olegious

The large platforms enable millions of eyeballs to be aggregated together to attract advertising dollars. In return, the eyeballs receive an algorithmic feed of bite sized dopamine hits (a Tweet, a short video, an Instagram image, etc). It is easier to attract an audience, is easier to sell ads against this audience, but is this audience as valuable to the creator as Cal's 80K newsletter followers? They're different business models and each has its own place.