How is this any different than in the analogue world? If you want to rage against "the system" in a local bar or in your living room with a few of your friends, nobody is going to bother you. If you have a large following, you are likely to face counter-speech or even moral suasion by others who don't like what they are hearing.

Second, the idea that platforms are reacting to public opinion precisely goes against the idea of authoritarianism.

If we're going down this path -- why don't we talk about talk radio in the US, which is essentially a precusor to Joe Rogan style content and is dominated by right-wing shock jocks. Does the absolute dominance of the right wing on talk radio and the absence of left-wing content mean that there is no free speech? Or I guess to take it to the level of your dystopian fantasy, should we live in a world where cars are programmed to require the listener to listen to talk radio and prevent anyone in cars from turning off the dial?

At least in small-l Enlightment liberalism, there is no such "right to be heard" except in the context that people have a right to petition and speak out against the government. You can't compel an audience -- this is why there is a corrolary freedom of association.

I agree with you that what tends to foster healthy social relations and civil society is where there are social norms that encourage debate and opportunities for people from different backgrounds and experiences to interact.

There's a lot of scholarship on that topic and where those spaces exist there are freedoms associated with them, but I think it would be extreme to say that people have a right to an audience.

>The reality of the situations is that these private platforms are the public squares of today, and like it or not, they represent the vast majority of communications.

Internet platforms are a cheap imitation of the town square and I don't see why we should effectively compel speech in order to maintain something like this. Even talk radio is closer to the public square in that much of the programming is live and they take (curated) calls from the listening audience.

The Internet has failed as a viable alternative for the public sphere for a number of predictable reasons. If your argument is that we should have a public square where ideas are openly contested, it's far easier to do that when the decisions are made locally in a manner that's closer to the public.

>Are there significant barriers to a left wing talk radio show? From what I understand, the issue isn't in institutional barriers, but instead a lack of a market.

Talk radio used to be closer to a public square but due to consolidation of local stations under basically a couple of owners starting in the 1980's, right wing shock jocks dominate the schedule. So, to the extent that there isn't a "market," it's for the reason you complain about regarding tech platforms and the result has been the absolute opposite of your complaint -- right wing speech is constantly present there. And frankly, take a look at tech platforms and you'll see that there are huge volumes of right wing content.

>However, we've very much seen the inverse for right-wing platform, with anything from payment processors to cloudflare and other core infrastructural components locking them out.

Those platforms are the opposite of a public square where ideology is contested rather than explicitly defined.

To directly address your point -- a lot of those were shut down for reasons beyond their politics. You can find any number of expressly right wing forums and websites on the Internet. As I've pointed out, talk radio has far more reach and impact than some of these tech platforms for better or worse.

> I know. My point is that he can do that, and he'd lose most of his reach.

The open web never promised that reach in the first place.

Previously, the "open web" was all there was, before the online walled gardens. Users were trained to get information that way. Now that traffic's been captured by the walled gardens that optimize for engagement. There's a reason Google Reader died, Google stated it: "declining use and relevance".

Going viral is essential to growing an audience. TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter offer that. The open web doesn't.

This is revisionist bullshit. Before Facebook et al AOL was the major walled garden. After AOL's star began to fade they and everyone else focused on becoming "homepages" with integrated search. They even provided helpful search toolbars! Social media is just the latest walled garden on the web.

Don't pretend the majority of web users have ever been bravely exploring the corners of every dark nook of the web. The majority has always been on some curated site with little deviation.

But he already had massive reach, that’s why Spotify paid $100 million. If his fans can be relied upon to sign up for Spotify and enter their credit card details you can bet they can be relied upon to click a link on a web page.

I know it’s a weak analogy but look at something like Wordle. It’s not on Steam, or in the App Store. It’s just a web page and it spread like wildfire despite what users are supposedly “trained” to do. We’re not giving people enough credit.

And? If a company spends money building a platform, including infrastructure, they can host whatever they want on it. They also don't need to host what they don't want. It doesn't matter if it's a hosting service or search engine or just a simple directory of links. No one owes anyone else their audience.

You're complaining that people might need to do work to get an audience.

Maybe if he was starting out. At this point his audience would follow him. That's not to mention that while he was a "traditional" podcast anyone could just add his RSS feed and listen. Indeed many of his listeners did just that before the Spotify deal. We're not yet at the point where client software is filtering content for us.