If you go back there was a period of time where there was a lot of discussion of how Twitter was ever going to monetize anything and get to profitability. One day, those conversations just vanished and were never to resume. Actually Facebook had similar issues (would ads ever work on mobile, etc.).
I think Big Tech didn't really need the government to scale so much as to give them a steady flow of guaranteed revenue. They participate in government run tracking/censorship/narrative systems in exchange for perpetual solvency and protection from competition.
It's why the board was totally indifferent about the company until Musk made a bid.
If you go back there was a period of time where there was a lot of discussion of how Twitter was ever going to monetize anything and get to profitability. One day, those conversations just vanished and were never to resume. Actually Facebook had similar issues (would ads ever work on mobile, etc.).
I think Big Tech didn't really need the government to scale so much as to give them a steady flow of guaranteed revenue. They participate in government run tracking/censorship/narrative systems in exchange for perpetual solvency and protection from competition.
It's why the board was totally indifferent about the company until Musk made a bid.
Revenue and infrastructure. I remember reading how Google could never afford the bandwidth they use by a lot without it being subsidized (provided).