RIP Martians. Earth could have been yours.

and c) they screw over existing businesses and/or industries that can't operate for years at loss like a VC backed upstart

The people behind the bots buy followers and pay to have posts boosted via retweets and likes.
They take advantage of trending keywords and hashtags so they appear in searches.
They also tag and dm key influencers likely to spread the message.
There are just enough people willing to blindly share anything they find on social media that vaguely supports their beliefs or they think will make others angry that the occasional bot can gain traction.

A lot of indie comics don't have a digital distribution platform. Meanwhile bigger companies are reluctant to go all digital as physical books make up the bulk of their sales.

In many cases, Facebook and Google are sending more people to the news sites. This should be driving more ad impressions for the news sites and getting them more ad revenue.
However, where many news organizations fail to capitalize on this and online revenue in general (which is often still more than they get from print ads/ota commercials) is the news sites rely on outside ad companies.
Users block those ad companies across the board, the ad companies take a share of the ad revenue, and deliver ads that are often not at all relevant to reader.
The biggest revenue hit for papers was the rise of sites like Craig's List, providing a free alternative to the classifieds which were a big source of income for local papers.
Beyond all that, the consolidation of papers, delivery and logistical issues, and basic corporate greed have taken their toll.

Linux on desktop is very hit or miss.
When it works, it works. When something goes wrong it can be, and usually is, a nightmare for the average person to troubleshoot.
When the average person needs a certain application or type of application, either it is there or you're SOL. Windows/Mac only software is the real deal breaker for most people.
The Linux community is either very helpful or excessively elitist and toxic.

"reached" means the person saw your ad.

Often advertisers will pay based on how often their ad is clicked. So let's say it costs you $1 per click. If 1% of men and 3% of women click on your ad, then to reach 100 men costs $1, while reaching 100 women costs $3. An while women click on ads more often, they are not necessarily making a purchases at the same rate.
So at the end of the day $3 could reach 300 men and make 2 direct sales, while $3 would only reach 100 women and also only make 2 direct sales. However having reached more men, the indirect sales could be higher.

Given the condition of most roads in the US, going off road is likely the safer option.

Your local TV stations, or more specifically their greedy parent companies, are to blame for the hike in Retransmission Fees. The ACA expects fees to keep going up. These fees vary from region to region.

The station owners have been using money from fees to buy more stations so they can leverage cable companies to raise fees.

Getting rid of the fees would require fixing the retransmission consent provision of the 1992 United States Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act. That forces cable operators and other rebroadcasters to obtain permission from broadcasters before carrying their programming.

It also wouldn't hurt to break up the cable companies and to break up the companies that own scads of local stations.

That's what you get for having friends.

They used to sell VHS tapes (it was that long ago) with highlights, interviews, etc. Titles included NBA Superstars, NBA Jam Session, and a lot of player and team specific tapes. For a while, highlight clips cut to music and sold as Basketball Music Videos were also a thing. If you were in the basketball community those tapes were everywhere as were bootleg copies of games and episodes of NBA Inside Stuff. Players, parents, and coaches were watching and studying those things.

What makes today different is that players can watch on the court via mobile devices. It is now a lot easier to break out a video at the park than it was back in the day (cause your mom was not letting you take the TV and VCR out of the house).

Good farmers care about their livestock, but at the end of the day still bring their animals to market.

Once upon a time, they considered themselves a micro-blogging platform. Guess they are just getting a little less micro.

Most relationships (friendships or otherwise) work best when there is time apart. Spending too much time together often ruins social circles. I've seen this many times over the years. People get burnt out dealing with other people. With social media, people (and their thoughts and opinions) are always there in some form or fashion.

Also the sheltered and ignorant are finally seeing what people are actually like. The internet is a fairly accurate portrayal of humanity in both good and ill. A large number of people simply cannot handle knowing and seeing who people (others and themselves) truly are.

Critical acclaim for a single role doesn't mean an actor can carry another film or has any range (i.e. Rebel Wilson). Often the critics are too quick to praise the actor because they physically break the mold. It then becomes apparent they really can't carry a major film and fall by the way side. Mediocre talent that isn't very pleasant to look at will get replaced by mediocre talent that is easy on the eyes.

Some do have talent and continue to have successful careers, while others with talent find they -like many many many other actors- simply fail to maintain career momentum. Even highly talented conventionally good looking actors struggle to land roles and keep their career on track. The business is a rough one.