Kurt Schlichter comes across as a lazy malcontent on this particular point.
There is more involved than writing code. There is the matter of acquiring a sufficient number of servers and bandwidth to support such an operation. I’ve read estimates that setting up a social media company would cost in the billion dollar range. This is not exactly within reach of most basement dwelling programming gurus. Meanwhile, the social media giants happily conduct the censorship that the government currently won’t do.
In addition to censoring conservative speech, they launch campaigns to de-person people. For example, they have successfully pressured banks and credit card companies into dropping the accounts of conservative organizations.
The goal of the left here is to use our principles of freedom to marginalize conservatives and make it impossible for conservatives to live as conservatives, until the left takes power. Then, they will use the tools leftist governments have always used to ensure their grasp on power.
We can’t afford to stand back and let them get to this point because they are using the tools of freedom against us.
“I’m not a software expert, but it seems to me that a small bunch of smart people could write the code for a YouTube competitor over a long holiday weekend.
Software isn’t a problem. Market Power and massive investment in server farms is a problem.
The absence of competitors in the lucrative social media world is itself a big clue that there are barriers of entry that aren’t obvious on the surface. A firm need only control 25% of a market to exert market power, and the social media platforms control far above 25%.