Before you get your backs up, this is not about politics, and sung to the tune of ‘Let’s Talk About Sex:’ It’s about tech, baby, it’s about you and me, it’s about all the good things and the bad things that can be, It’s about tech. Let’s talk about tech.

At the dawn of the Age of Social, it was widely proclaimed that we, the users, were the product. Is a shift underway at a tectonic level?

Two men engaged in a conversation on X’s Spaces last week and the audience numbers were off the charts. Live, watched later, or simulcast over various sites, it was reported that between a quarter billion to a billion people tuned in.

For context: “Super Bowl LVII totals more than 113 million viewers, ranks second most-watched game ever,” Nielsen reported. The Olympic games drew some 30.6 million viewers, according to CNN, “making the Games the most-streamed Olympics of all time.”

The only other event that came remotely close to what the Spaces stream enjoyed: Princess Diana’s funeral, with over two billion viewers.

A Washington Post reporter asked the White House what role it had in censoring ‘misinformation’ as a result of the stream, MSN reported. Given the steadily declining number of WaPost readers, was this his true concern? Doesn’t a reporter, of all people, know that in this country, we supposedly enjoy a free and open press, and what is X other than a media company?

Speaking of the legacy media, remember when a Weather Channel reporter ‘struggled’ to maintain his balance while reporting on Hurricane Florence, while pedestrians stroll casually by behind him. The video quickly went viral, and you wonder…

As we said, this is about having access to a free and open forum, and the ensuing results when the world could watch, without gatekeepers controlling, scripting and/or choreographing the content.

The Spaces stream was a testament to the true power of technology

Take note, founders et al: at the very least, hundreds of millions tuned in to last week’s stream and how interesting that in the era of ChatGPT and LLMs, the true power of tech may well turn out to be…

Authenticity.

“Nearly 100 million Americans age 12 and older listen to podcasts every week, MSN reported. ““Younger consumers want more ways to interact with creators and creators want better ways to express themselves,” said Spotify Chief Executive Daniel Ek.”

Meanwhile, television news outlets (and statisticians) have long been reporting that people simply aren’t tuning into the news anymore. Truth be told, news outlets, it seems they’re simply not interested in watching you. In some ways, the mainstream media might have taken a leaf from tech and looked at audiences as the product. If that is the case, seems the audiences just aren’t buying into what you’re peddling.

Two men spoke, but given the viewership numbers, it was the audience who was heard, loud and clear. We can only wonder if the legacy media got the message. Onward and forward.